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EF1 tornado in Sebastian County, Arkansas

Tornado May 3, 2021 · Sebastian County, Arkansas

EF1

Rating

41.8 mi

Whole path

1,600 yd

Path width

Injury

$16.2M

Damage as recorded

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

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 1,600 yards (0.91 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 third segment of a four segment tornado. The tornado moved across the Arkansas River and into Sebastian County, uprooting numerous trees before moving across the northern portion of the City of Fort Smith. Numerous homes and businesses were damaged by this large tornado, numerous power poles were snapped, and many trees were uprooted before the tornado crossed the Arkansas River again, moving back into Crawford County. Based on this damage, maximum estimated wind in this segment of the tornado was 95 to 105 mph.

The wider storm

Severe thunderstorms developed across portions of northwestern Arkansas during the evening of the 3rd, along and east of a stationary front that stretched across the area. The air mass across much of northwestern Arkansas became very unstable ahead of the storms, and wind shear across the region increased as an upper level disturbance approached from the west. These conditions supported the development of bowing line segments, which produced several tornadoes, and damaging wind gusts.

Began near Ft Smith (35.4100, -94.4250).

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 958730. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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