TornadoLookup

Home / Arkansas / Ashley

F3 tornado in Ashley County, Arkansas

Tornado November 24, 2001 · Ashley County, Arkansas

F3
Rating
30.0 mi
Whole path
880 yd
Path width
3
Deaths
11
Injuries
$2.2M
Damage as recorded

NOAA records this tornado county by county. Its path ran through Morehouse Parish, Louisiana → Ashley County; the totals above are for the whole tornado.

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 880 yards (0.50 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What F3 means. This tornado was rated on Fujita’s original scale, used until 2007. F3 meant severe damage: whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned; the scale paired it with winds of 158–206 mph, figures later judged too high, especially toward the top of the scale, and revised downward in the Enhanced Fujita scale. Ratings then, as now, came from the damage.

What the National Weather Service wrote

A supercell thunderstorm produced a tornado that moved out of Morehouse Parish, Louisiana into Ashley County, Arkansas, 6 miles southwest of Wilmot. The tornado then moved to the south end of Lake Enterprise, just west of Wilmot. The tornado strengthened and widened as it approached the Wilmot area and was rated as an F3 with a maximum width of one half mile. The tornado destroyed 14 mobile homes and houses and caused extensive damage to five other homes in the vicinity of Wilmot. A church on the north side of Wilmot was completely destroyed. Additionally, a tractor shed housing farm equipment was destroyed, and the equipment inside was also destroyed. As the tornado tracked northeast toward Parkdale, it damaged or destroyed several cotton pickers, trailers, and tractors. The tornado lifted 2.5 miles east-northeast of Parkdale. The total estimated damage of the tornado was $2.0 million. The tornado caused the deaths of three people in the vicinity of Wilmot. Additionally, a total of eleven people sustained injuries.

Began near Wilmot (32.9833, -91.6500).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

F1 Chicot County

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 5272442. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

Tornadoes near your address

See every tornado that passed near a place you know, measured to its path.