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EF1 tornado in White County, Arkansas

Tornado November 15, 2020 · White County, Arkansas

EF1

Rating

2.0 mi

Path length

150 yd

Path width

Injuries

$40K

Damage as recorded

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 150 yards (0.09 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

The NWS survey revealed an EF1 tornado that started just west of Wayne

Walker Road, rolling a mobile home. Another mobile home was severely damaged off Highland Circle just to the east. Along R. G. Davis Road, a double-wide mobile home was pushed off the block foundation. A mobile home along Reames Road sustained roof damage. Other than damage to mobile homes, several trees were either snapped or uprooted along the path. This tornado lifted just southeast of the intersection of Reames and Blackjack Mountain Road. There were four injuries reported.

The wider storm

Shortly before 600 pm CST, storms fired up just north of Arkansas, and became severe quickly. By 800 pm CST, severe storms were in far northwest Arkansas, and made headway through much of the region north and west of Little Rock (Pulaski County) by the midnight hour.

Along the way, there was a 60 mph gust near Mountain Home (Baxter County). Numerous trees were downed eight miles northwest of Ozark (Franklin County). Several trees and road signs were knocked down at Mountain View (Stone County). Empty train cars were pushed over at Hoxie (Lawrence County).

Around 115 am CST on the 15th, the focus was on a storm advancing into central sections of the state. There was persistent rotation in the storm, but mostly not strong enough to worry about. However, the rotation tightened briefly, and this resulted in a quick tornado just south of Romance (White County).

Video footage showed the destruction, with at least one mobile home rolled and demolished. Residents were busy picking up the pieces. This was the forty fifth tornado of the year in Arkansas (more than the usual thirty three tornadoes). Less than a half hour later, the front and storms along it reached Little Rock National Airport (Pulaski County), and a 52 mph gust was measured.

Began near Romance (35.2191, -92.0579).

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 925536. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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