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EF3 tornado in St. Charles County, Missouri

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

EF3
Rating
31.7 mi
Whole path
950 yd
Path width
8
Injuries
$60.0M
Damage as recorded

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

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 950 yards (0.54 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF3 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF3 is severe damage: whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, consistent with estimated gusts of 136–165 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 about four miles southwest of Weldon Spring in St. Charles County, Missouri. It downed trees, blew over empty tractor trailers, and caused minor damage to construction equipment. It moved east-northeast into Weldon Spring Heights and the Missouri Research Park (on the south side of Weldon Spring) causing roof, window, and solar panel damage to a few structures as well as downing more trees before crossing Interstate 64. The tornado passed within one half of a mile of the National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office which is located in the Missouri Research Park. The tornado continued moving east-northeast through densely populated residential areas of southern St. Charles County, south of Highway 94. Roofing was torn off of Bryan Middle School and blown 100 yards, many houses suffered varying degrees of roof (from minor damage to removal of entire roof), wall (from minor damage to total collapse), and overall structural damage, and thousands of trees were damaged. The most intense damage, rated EF3, occurred on Haversham Drive where only the interior walls were left standing of three homes. The tornado began to move a bit more easterly, widening to nearly 1000 yards (or a half-mile), causing damage in residential areas and the St. Charles Family Arena before crossing the Missouri River into St. Louis County just south of Interstate 70.

The tornado caused damage to 765 homes in St. Charles County. Seven hundred twenty-three homes suffered minor damage, 34 homes suffered major damage, and 8 homes were destroyed. Three hundred forty-eight businesses sustained minor damage, while 25 businesses had major damage. Cleanup costs alone for St. Charles County was 2.4 million dollars, with approximately 50,000 tons of tree and limb debris removed. There were 8 minor injuries due to the tornado.

The path length of the tornado in St. Charles County was 14.8 miles with a max path width of 950 yards. The damage for this segment was estimated to be EF3 with max wind speeds of 150 MPH. Overall, the entire tornado path length was 31.8 miles with a max path width of 1 mile and a maximum damage rating of EF3.

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 Defiance (38.6867, -90.7498).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 462224. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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