EF1 tornado in Douglas County, Missouri

A National Weather Service storm survey confirmed an EF-1 tornado touched down about five miles southeast of Ava, Missouri and tracked northeast across mainly forested areas north of Hunter Creek. The tornado was on the ground for approximately four minutes along its three mile total track with maximum wind speeds estimated at 100 mph. This tornado was spawned from a cyclical supercell thunderstorm which produced an earlier tornado near Squires, Missouri and presented a TDS on radar. Thousands of trees were snapped or uprooted along and north of Hunter Creek with lighter tree damage noted before the tornado lifted between County Road 213 and Highway 76.

Very moist and unstable conditions developed over the Missouri Ozarks ahead of an intense low pressure system over the southern Plains. Widespread severe storms developed over Oklahoma and eastern Kansas during the early morning hours and tracked eastward into the Springfield county warning area during the afternoon and evening. Very heavy rainfall, hail to tennis ball size, damaging winds in excess of 70 mph and 27 tornadoes occurred with this system as storms tracked repeatedly over the region. Four injuries were reported as a result of severe storms. One injury was near Mountain Grove and three were in southeastern Greene County were an EF-2 Tornado tracked. The resulting rainfall led to widespread flash flooding, which continued into the morning of May 1st, on head water streams and low water crossings. One live was lost when a camper along Hunter Creek in Douglas County drowned as the campground flooded.