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EF3 tornado in Pulaski County, Missouri

Tornado January 7, 2008 · Pulaski County, Missouri

EF3
Rating
6.4 mi
Whole path
400 yd
Path width
3
Injuries
$1.1M
Damage as recorded

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

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 400 yards (0.23 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 National Weather Service storm survey revealed that an EF-3 tornado tracked across a rural section of northeast Pulaski County. A few homes and several outbuildings were destroyed. The tornado then tracked into northeast Phelps County.

The wider storm

An unusual mid winter tornado outbreak occurred over southwest and central Missouri. 31 tornadoes struck the region within a 15 hour time frame on 7 January into early morning 8 January. Two tornadoes intensified to EF-3 status while five tornadoes caused EF-2 damage. All other tornadoes during this outbreak were surveyed and given EF-0 and EF-1 status. Multiple training supercells spawned most of these tornadoes that occurred along the Interstate 44 corridor. Toward the end of this episode, a broken squall line spawned numerous EF-0 and EF-1 tornadoes across the southern Missouri Ozarks.

Began near Hooker (37.9009, -92.0609).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 73789. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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