Historical Arkansas Tornadoes

Posted by on 25 Apr 2011 | 11 comments


UPDATED: 11:30 PM CDT on 25 April 2011
The statistics have been updated to better account for tornadoes that crossed state boundaries. This added 32 tornadoes and 9 fatalities to the Arkansas counts. None of these additional tornadoes were rated violent tornadoes (F/EF-4 or greater). The Arkansas Tornado CSV file has been updated as well.

Several large tornadoes moved through Arkansas this evening, with the worst damage as of this writing coming from the town of Vilonia, AR. Several television stations from Little Rock are now reporting that parts of Highway 64 “are missing”. Anytime reports of pavement being scoured, the talk inevitably turns to discussion about tornado ratings, and comparisons to other pavement scouring tornadoes. Personally, I believe any talk of ratings tonight is premature, however, I went ahead and pulled the Arkansas historical record to help put this event in perspective.

Officially, there has never been a F/EF-5 tornado in Arkansas. Let me repeat that. There has never been an F/EF-5 tornado in Arkansas. In fact, there have only been 26 F/EF-4 tornadoes. If this tornado is rated a violent tornado (EF-4 or EF-5), it will rank among the strongest 2% of all tornadoes to strike Arkansas. If we limit to only tornadoes between 1980 and 2010, only 1.3% of al tornadoes were “violent” tornadoes. Even though most tornadoes are not violent tornadoes, almost half of all tornado fatalities in Arkansas (53) resulted from these 13 EF-4 tornadoes. The fact that there have been so few reported fatalities as of this writing (only 1), is a testament to the National Weather Service in Little Rock and their excellent warnings.

Click here to download the Arkansas Tornado Dataset in CSV format.

Arkansas Tornadoes and Fatalities (1981 – 2010)
  • F/EF0 : 363 (36.37%)……………… 0 fatalities (0.00%)
  • F/EF1 : 376 (37.68%)……………… 1 fatalities (0.76%)
  • F/EF2 : 172 (17.23%)……………… 24 fatalities (18.18%)
  • F/EF3 : 74 (7.41%)…………………. 54 fatalities (40.91%)
  • F/EF4 : 13 (1.30%)…………………. 53 fatalities (40.15%)
  • F/EF5 : 0 (0.00%)…………………… 0 fatalities (0.0%)

    • Total: 998 tornadoes and 132 fatalities

    In terms of all Arkansas tornadoes:

    All Arkansas Tornadoes (1950 – 2010)
  • F/EF Unknown : 16 (1.01%)
  • F/EF0 : 436 (27.47%)
  • F/EF1 : 568 (35.79%)
  • F/EF2 : 387 (24.39%)
  • F/EF3 : 154 (9.70%)
  • F/EF4 : 26 (1.64%)
  • F/EF5 : 0 (0.00%)

    • Total: 1587 tornadoes

    Here are all Arkansas F/EF-4 tornadoes:

  • 21 March 1952 @ 14:40 (2:40 PM)
  • 21 March 1952 @ 16:50 (4:50 PM)
  • 21 March 1952 @ 17:00 (5:00 PM)
  • 21 March 1952 @ 17:30 (5:30 PM)
  • 21 March 1952 @ 18:00 (6:00 PM)
  • 19 December 1957 @ 12:44 (12:44 PM)
  • 10 April 1965 @ 18:26 (6:26 PM)
  • 03 April 1968 @ 18:30 (6:20 PM)
  • 19 April 1968 @ 15:12 (3:12 PM)
  • 15 May 1968 @ 20:36 (8:36 PM)
  • 15 May 1968 @ 20:45 (8:45 PM)
  • 26 May 1973 @ 22:30 (10:30 PM)
  • 28 March 1975 @ 19:52 (7:52 PM)
  • 02 April 1982 @ 17:20 (5:20 PM)
  • 24 December 1982 @ 17:00 (5:00 PM)
  • 15 March 1984 @ 17:40 (5:40 PM)
  • 15 March 1984 @ 19:17 (7:17 PM)
  • 14 April 1996 @ 18:10 (6:10 PM)
  • 01 March 1997 @ 14:20 (2:20 PM)
  • 01 March 1997 @ 14:47 (2:47 PM)
  • 01 March 1997 @ 15:25 (3:25 PM)
  • 01 March 1997 @ 15:41 (3:41 PM)
  • 01 March 1997 @ 18:20 (6:20 PM)
  • 16 April 1998 @ 1:50 (1:50 AM)
  • 21 January 1999 @ 17:50 (5:50 PM)
  • 05 February 2008 @ 16:49 (4:49 PM)

    • Aaron

      Patrick,

      Where are you getting the State Tornado data from? Awesome post though!

    • http://www.patricktmarsh.com pmarshwx

      I combine the tornado reports from the SPC Tornado database (available here).

    • Lisa

      I love tornado stats! Do you have the cities/areas where these EF-4 twisters occured? Thanks.

    • http://www.patricktmarsh.com pmarshwx

      Hi, Lisa,

      If you download the Arkansas Tornadoes CSV file contains the latitude and longitudes of all Arkansas tornadoes. Unfortunately, I do not have the names of the nearest cities and/or towns. Will this work?

    • Nita Wilson

      I have two cousins that were killed in the 1952 tornado in Arkansas. Do you know how to obtain photos and articles of the destruction. It was Lonoke County, AR.

    • A L

      There has been an F5 tornado in Arkansas.

      http://www.srh.noaa.gov/lzk/?n=tor041029a.htm

    • http://www.patricktmarsh.com pmarshwx

      Hi, A L,

      Thank you for your comment. The information on the website is partially correct. The Fujita scale was not developed until the 1970s, and all tornadoes prior to its creation were rated the best the could by Dr. Fujita and his graduate students. Those going back to 1950 are part of the tornado database kept at the Storm Prediction Center, and those prior are not. Regardless, tornadoes predating the Fujita scale should be taken with caution as they were not subject to the same scrutiny as tornadoes today. The old tornadoes were ranked by photographs, which are biased toward the most intense damage, without regard to surrounding structures. It’s impossible to assess building quality in an old newspaper photo, whereas structures hit by tornadoes now are heavily scrutinized.

    • doug

      Have you done any research on the Jan. 11, 1898 tornado that hit Fort Smith, Arkansas. 52 were killed that night, 30 more died later from injuries. There were no ratings of tornadoes then, but it was probably an F4 or F5 if you read about the path of destruction.

    • http://www.patricktmarsh.com pmarshwx

      Hi, Doug,

      I actually am from Fort Smith, so I have heard many stories of this tornado. I haven’t studied it too in-depth, but I probably should look it up in the Significant Tornado book. I do remember reading a lot of about this tornado in Jay Hilgartner’s KFSM almanac each year, though. This tornado very well could have been a F-4 or F-5. I also seem to recall a Christmas Eve tornado that struck Fort Smith that could have been a F-4 or F-5. In both of these cases substantial damage was observed, and most likely deserved the high ratings that we’re proposing. However, with the advent of the EF-Scale, it is extremely hard to get EF-4 or EF-5 damage because quality of construction plays such a large role.

    • Julie Starbird

      I’m writing a piece about the storms as an Arkansas expat living in Chicago, and I have a morbid question that I can’t find in one place online – what is the total Arkansas death toll for all the tornadoes of 2011? Please include the New Year’s Eve storm.

    • http://www.patricktmarsh.com pmarshwx

      Hi, Julie,

      I have 12 AR fatalities recorded from 31 December 2010 through 17 April 2011. I seem to recall that there were fatalities on 25 April 2011 (the Vilonia, AR tornado day), but they have not officially been classified as tornado fatalities (yet).