...F1 Tornado Strikes St. James, Missouri...
An unusually powerful storm system affected much of the central U.S. bringing an out of season and rare September outbreak of severe thunderstorms and tornadoes to portions of Missiouri, Illinois, Arkansas and Kentucky. Supercell thunderstorms developed early Friday afternoon over portions of the Missouri and northern Arkansas, moving quickly eastward across the mid Mississippi valley leaving paths of damage, and in some cases destruction, in their wake as they spawned numerous tornadoes. In the National Weather Service Springfield area of responsibility one tornado touched down producing F1 intensity damage in the town of St. James in northeastern Phelps County. Many additional tornadoes touched down in the St. Louis, Little Rock, and Paducah National Weather Service offices' areas of responsibility.
More detailed information on the tornado that struck St. James, Missouri can be found in this Public Information Statement issued Friday evening. Below are links to the track maps for the tornado that struck St. James...
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| Large view of track of the torando | Closer view of tornado track |
Here are some damage photos taken by the National Weather Service while surveying the tornado damage in St. James...
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The map below shows the severe weather reports from across the National Weather Service Springfield's area of responsibility. To see a complete text listsing of all the reports simply click on the map.
The map below shows plot of all the preliminary large hail, damaging wind, and tornado reports received from across the country Friday and Friday night. For a detailed and complete text listing of each report simply click on the map below.
The radar image below shows the location of the storm as well as a plot of the tornado warning boxes in effect when the tornado touched down near St. James...
(Additional radar imagery will be added over the coming few days.)
In addition to the tornado near St. James, the thunderstorms Friday afternoon and Friday night produced torrential rainfall over portions of south central Missouri near the Arkansas border. Below is the KSGF-88D doppler radar estimate of how much rain fell, keep in mind that radar will often overestimate rainfall amounts when hail falls.
(Click on the image above for the latest public information statement containing measured rainfall amounts)
