Home / Arkansas / Chicot

F3 tornado in Chicot County, Arkansas

Tornado March 20, 1976 · Chicot County, Arkansas

Rating

4.6 mi

Whole path

27 yd

Path width

Injuries

$2.5M

Damage as recorded

NOAA records this tornado county by county. Its path ran through West Carroll Parish, Louisiana → Chicot County; the totals above are for the whole tornado.

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 27 yards (0.02 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What F3 means. This tornado was rated on Fujita’s original scale, used until 2007. F3 meant severe damage: whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned; the scale paired it with winds of 158–206 mph, figures later judged too high, especially toward the top of the scale, and revised downward in the Enhanced Fujita scale. Ratings then, as now, came from the damage.

NOAA’s online database has no written narrative for tornadoes before 1996 — just the numbers above, transcribed from the original storm logs. Written accounts from this era do exist in NOAA’s monthly Storm Data publications (scanned, back to 1959).

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 9980340. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

Tornadoes near your address

See every tornado that passed near a place you know, measured to its path.