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EF1 tornado in Crawford County, Arkansas

Tornado May 24, 2011 · Crawford County, Arkansas

EF1

Rating

5.2 mi

Whole path

800 yd

Path width

$50K

Damage as recorded

NOAA records this tornado county by county. Its path ran through Sequoyah County, Oklahoma → Crawford County; the totals above are for the whole tornado.

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 800 yards (0.45 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF1 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF1 is moderate damage: roofs badly stripped, mobile homes pushed off foundations or overturned, windows broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 86–110 mph. The rating comes from a survey of the worst damage after the storm, not from a wind measurement, so it says as much about what the tornado hit as about how strong it was.

What the National Weather Service wrote

This is the second of two segments of this tornado. In Crawford County, this tornado destroyed several barns, damaged several permanent homes, blew siding off a metal building, and snapped or uprooted a number of large trees.

The wider storm

Severe thunderstorms developed along a dry line over central Oklahoma during the afternoon hours. Very unstable air and strong wind shear east of the dry line supported supercell thunderstorm structures, which persisted as the storms moved into northwestern Arkansas late in the evening. These severe storms produced tornadoes, large hail, and damaging downburst wind across portions of northwestern Arkansas. One of the tornadoes was especially intense, resulting in considerable damage to several towns as well as three fatalities in Franklin County.

Began near Van Buren (35.4493, -94.4410).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

1 more tornado the National Weather Service filed under this storm episode.

EF4 Franklin County 4 dead

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 312983. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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