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EF1 tornado in Benton County, Arkansas

Tornado October 20, 2019 · Benton County, Arkansas

EF1

Rating

40.5 mi

Whole path

900 yd

Path width

$6.2M

Damage as recorded

NOAA records this tornado county by county. Its path ran through Adair County, Oklahoma → Benton County → Benton County; the totals above are for the whole tornado.

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 900 yards (0.51 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

This is the second segment of a two-segment tornado. In Benton County, this tornado moved across the southern portion of Siloam Springs, uprooting numerous trees, damaging homes and businesses, destroying outbuildings, and snapping power poles. Based on this damage, maximum estimated wind in this segment of the tornado was 90 to 100 mph.

The wider storm

Thunderstorms developed over central Oklahoma during the early evening of the 20th, along and just ahead of a cold front moving into the area. The atmosphere ahead of the front was very unstable. Wind fields across the region strengthened with the approach of a strong upper level storm system, and very strong wind shear developed over northwestern Arkansas by late evening. The thunderstorms moved across eastern Oklahoma during the evening, and organized into a solid line of thunderstorms before they moved into northwest Arkansas. The thunderstorms produced very strong downburst wind as they moved through the region. Several tornadoes developed along the leading edge of the thunderstorm line, one of which was long-track and strong.

Began near Lake Frances (36.1524, -94.5610).

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 862911. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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