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EF1 tornado in Benton County, Arkansas

Tornado May 20, 2013 · Benton County, Arkansas

EF1
Rating
0.8 mi
Path length
270 yd
Path width
$50K
Damage as recorded
EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 270 yards (0.15 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 tornado damaged one home, damaged several boat docks, and blew down trees. Based on this damage, maximum estimated wind in the tornado was 90 to 100 mph.

The wider storm

Severe thunderstorms developed along a nearly stationary frontal boundary over central Oklahoma during the early afternoon hours of the 20th. Very unstable air combined with strong low-level and deep-layer shear resulted in long-lived supercells forming over central Oklahoma and moving eastward into eastern Oklahoma. The storms organized into bow echos and line segments over eastern Oklahoma, from which several other tornadoes developed during the early evening hours. One such tornado moved into northwestern Arkansas dissipating north of Cincinnati in Washington County. Two other tornadoes developed in Benton County. Damaging wind and large hail was also widespread across the region from these storms.

Began near Larue (36.3200, -93.9296).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

2 more tornadoes the National Weather Service filed under this storm episode.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 455302. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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