EF2 Tornado — Cape Girardeau, Missouri

2012-02-29 · near Oak Ridge, Cape Girardeau, Missouri

Event narrative

Thousands of trees were snapped or uprooted, and several houses were damaged. The houses that were damaged suffered primarily partial roof loss. The houses were located in Oak Ridge and Pocahontas. One man was injured when a roof collapsed on him. Numerous barns and grain bins were destroyed. Many power lines were blown down. The average path width was 250 yards. Peak winds were estimated near 115 mph. The tornado path continued across the Mississippi River into Union County, Illinois.

Wider weather episode

A squall line with embedded sustained supercells crossed southeast Missouri. The embedded supercells raced east-northeast at 60 to 70 mph, while the line moved southeast at a slower rate. The storms strengthened as they encountered richer low-level moisture, with surface dew points around 60 degrees spreading rapidly north-northeastward up the Mississippi Valley. Intense low to mid-level wind fields maintained the intensity of tornadic storms despite weak instability due to lack of solar heating. A south-southwesterly low level jet from 60 to 70 knots veered to west-southwest around 75 knots at 500 mb.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (37.5000, -89.7300)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 359708. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.