EF1 tornado in St. Louis County, Missouri

Tornado May 31, 2013 · St. Louis County, Missouri

EF1

Rating

10.6 mi

Whole path

50 yd

Path width

NOAA records this tornado county by county. Its path ran through St. Louis County → Madison County, Illinois; the totals above are for the whole tornado.

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 50 yards (0.03 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

A tornado touched down in the Columbia Bottom Conservation Area, about 3 miles northeast of the interchange of I-270 and Columbia Bottom Road. It uprooted a large tree in this location, then traveled to the northeast. It uprooted another large tree just northeast of Upper Columbia Bottom Road, before turning a bit more easterly and crossed the Mississippi River into Madison County Illinois. For this segment of the tornado, the path length in St. Louis County was 2 miles with a max path width of 50 yards. The damage for this segment was rated EF1 with max wind speeds of 90 MPH. Overall, the entire tornado path length was 10.6 miles with a max path width of 150 yards. The tornado was rated EF3 with max wind speeds of 160 MPH.

The wider storm

Storms developed along an outflow boundary that was laid out along the I-70 corridor. The storms produced wind damage, large hail as well as 9 tornadoes. Two of the tornadoes were rated EF3 as they moved through the St. Louis metro area. Also, heavy rain fell causing flash flooding in some locations, which persisted into the early morning hours of June 1st.

Began near Larimore (38.8009, -90.1493).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

EF3 St. Charles County EF1 Franklin County EF1 Jefferson County EF0 Montgomery County EF0 Montgomery County

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 461832. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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