Tornado Hits Benton County

[Mith242]

Here I've been posting away and having ESPN on and I finally turn it over to local news and apparently there was a tornado last night in Benton County. Apparently the last time we've had a tornado touch down and do much damage was back in the 70's. Sounds like the western part of the county took most of the damage. Tennis and softball sized hail has been reported. Three areas I've heard mentioned so far Bentonville, Centerton and Little Flock. It sounds like at least 15 homes in Centerton could be destroyed. They had some live shots from a street in Bentonville that was hit pretty bad. I didn't catch what road it was but they said it would probably be shut down today. Sounds like there is damage at the Bentonville High School. The main hanger at the Bentonville Airport is apparently gone. Hopefully none of our forumers were in the path of this tornado. No deaths are being reported yet. Maybe if some of our Benton County forumers haven't taken damage and have electricity they can give us more info as the day goes on.

[Mith242]

Sounds like the tornado touched down around 10PM between Highfill and Centerton. Sounds like Avoca and Pea Ridge were also hit by the tornado but I haven't heard much info about that area. It also appears it went into Carroll County and hit Holiday Island.

[nj829]

Sounds like the tornado touched down around 10PM between Highfill and Centerton. Sounds like Avoca and Pea Ridge were also hit by the tornado but I haven't heard much info about that area. It also appears it went into Carroll County and hit Holiday Island.

Hey guys, live in Pea Ridge and had golf ball sized hail at the least for 20 minutes last night, broke 3 windows on the front of the house, put holes in the siding on another side, and who knows on the shingles of the house. My wife went by Little Flock this AM on the way into Rogers to get supplies for the fridge (lost power for 6 hours also) and noticed several houses destroyed along a path. If any of you can recommend any siding/shingle/window replacer people, feel free to PM me if you have anyone!

Thanks

[tim2462]

The Weather Channel did a live segment from Fayetteville yesterday every 30 minutes for most of the day. He was standing on a service road in the south of town, right off of 540. They were promoting their tornado alley severe weather week special...not sure if Fayetteville will be featured or not. I think someone from the NWS in Tulsa drove over to do the segments.

[Aporkalypse]

I heard there was significant damage at Bentonville HS's new gym, that the roof was torn off. Is that true? How bad was it?

[mcheiss]

The Weather Channel did a live segment from Fayetteville yesterday every 30 minutes for most of the day. He was standing on a service road in the south of town, right off of 540. They were promoting their tornado alley severe weather week special...not sure if Fayetteville will be featured or not. I think someone from the NWS in Tulsa drove over to do the segments.

I saw that segment, they even mentioned the hogs quite a bit.

I saw plenty of damage on my way to work today. At 102 and Moberly, A gas station roof was imploded in, and part of the station was shut down. At one of the Walmart Distribution centers, 5 semis were flipped onto the pavement. The BHS new facility roof did have damage, and a light pole even feel on it. J Street, which is where the Bentonville High School is, was closed today. Gentry Public Schools were closed. I have a coworker that lives out near Centerton, claims she had softball sized hail, and that it looked like it had snowed once the hail and rain stopped!!

[Mith242]

The Weather Channel did a live segment from Fayetteville yesterday every 30 minutes for most of the day. He was standing on a service road in the south of town, right off of 540. They were promoting their tornado alley severe weather week special...not sure if Fayetteville will be featured or not. I think someone from the NWS in Tulsa drove over to do the segments.

It's odd they picked NWA. I'm pretty sure this is the first tornado since the 70's to do damage in NWA. This area seems to have a rather low number of tornadoes considering the rest of the surrounding area.

I heard there was significant damage at Bentonville HS's new gym, that the roof was torn off. Is that true? How bad was it?

I have heard there was damage at the high school. Most of what I heard was about the football stadium. I haven't heard anything since early this morning though. I'll be keeping an eye on the evening news and post some updates.

I saw that segment, they even mentioned the hogs quite a bit.

I saw plenty of damage on my way to work today. At 102 and Moberly, A gas station roof was imploded in, and part of the station was shut down. At one of the Walmart Distribution centers, 5 semis were flipped onto the pavement. The BHS new facility roof did have damage, and a light pole even feel on it. J Street, which is where the Bentonville High School is, was closed today. Gentry Public Schools were closed. I have a coworker that lives out near Centerton, claims she had softball sized hail, and that it looked like it had snowed once the hail and rain stopped!!

Yeah KNWA this morning was reporting that areas got softball size hail. I've heard there was a lot of window damage around Benton County. I haven't seen any official word on this but I had coworkers saying they had heard a train had been blown over by the tornado/storm. I've also heard someone mention there were 10 tornadoes in Benton County last night. I doubt that's official though. Of course I'm sure there are rumors flying around quite a bit too.

[Mith242]

Here's an estimated path that I made from a map I saw on KNWA. Now that's not to say there was damage all along this line. It apparently skipped over some areas, maybe it weakened then restrengthen. Everything I'm hearing sounds like Centerton, Bentonville and Little Flock were the worst hit. Two areas mentioned a lot and were possibly the worst hit was the Bentonville Municipal Airport and the Bentonville High School. A lot of damage came from the winds knocking down the large lights at the stadium. They did mention a roof being peeled off one of the buildings at the sports complex but I didn't hear any mention that it was the gym. Luckily no deaths have been reported so far. It sounds like the tennis ball to softball sized hail occured just north of the path of the tornado.

[Mith242]

KNWA has just now reported that the weather service has now said that there was multiple tornadoes along this line from one parent storm. Sections along the path recieved F3 tornadic damage. Tornadoes of this strength get up to 206 mph.

[slyder1]

Southwest Missouri and Springfield got hit very bad last night and the night before. Last night KY3 (had baseball size hail at the station) was on the air for almost five hours straight as well as KOLR10, Springfield 33 and Ozarks Fox27. There was 113 tornados reported (most in missouri) last night by the national weather service.

There were many tornados in and around the Springfeid area including Nixa, Republic, Billings, Willard, Pierce City, Branson....... the National Weather Service here in Springfield had a tornado go over head.

"At least one person was believed dead and 22 were injured in the Springfield region overnight, the National Weather Service reported this morning."

^read more......www.new-leader.com

[Mith242]

Yeah it sounds like Missouri took the brunt of the tornadoes. I still haven't heard any deaths mentioned down here in NWA.

[KJW]

Yeah it sounds like Missouri took the brunt of the tornadoes. I still haven't heard any deaths mentioned down here in NWA.

(Gang, I posted this over at the "Stormtrack" forum (http://www.stormtrack.org/forum/index.php?...pic=10500&st=20)...I'll copy it here about what we went through Sunday night.)

Well, last night I was "in" the Bentonville tornado.

The previous day (3/11/06) the supercell which came from Cherokee County Oklahoma (Tahlequah) went right over our business in Centerton, AR, just west of Bentonville. That one was an HP event, and the front sheared anvil looked very smooth angling from the southwest. The rain was the heaviest I can recall since moving to northwest Arkansas in 2002 but once it left all I saw was a "rock-hard" updraft to the east. A tornado warning was issued shortly thereafter for eastern Benton County, and the storm remained "warned" all the way into eastern Missouri south of St. Louis. (I believe this may have been the storm which killed two people near St. Mary's, MO, sadly). There was some lightning with this storm but it didn't seem that intense.

Well...

Yesterday, like Saturday, was quite warm. Convection was evident by mid-morning on Saturday, but there was far less cloud cover yesterday. Checking radar before leaving our store I saw from storms firing up over what appeared to be a weak dryline (at the time the storms were not connected) but the radar images were far less impressive for our area than the day before.

Driving to the Wal-Mart just across the border in McDonald County, MO, I saw some lightning in the cloud tops over what appeared to be the Joplin area 50 miles north. Listening to AM 740 in Tulsa there were reports of rain and hail all over the city and two storms with strong rotation...one in Rogers County (headed most likely for Joplin or north) and one in Wagoner County, OK (good chance that it was headed our way). Returning home and walking my dog around 8:30 pm I noticed a strong inflow from the south and figured it was feeding the Joplin area storms. I talked with a neighbor about how I'd ducked into her garage with my dog in November when I saw power flashes to the west and heard an oncoming "waterfall" noise (turned out to be high winds which snapped a few lines that night). I told her hopefully tonight wouldn't be THAT bad. :roll:

The missus and I were watching "Crossing Jordan" while our NBC affiliate had tornado warned areas (Adair and Delaware County, OK, immediately to the east). Suddenly, Benton County got "warned" as well and they cut to local continuous weather. The meteorologist (Rick Katzfey of KNWA) started saying they were receiving "tornado on the ground" reports on Route 412 in Oklahoma west of Siloam Springs, AR (far southwest part of our county). He was showing doppler radar areas where strong rotation appeared to be. He said THIS storm, unlike the previous day's, was an LP cell and that one could probably see the oncoming wall cloud.

Immediately I bolted out the front with my daughter as my son said the sirens were sounding. The beautiful anvil was over us from the southwest, scalloped in appearance rather than smooth, with very active anvil crawler CC bolts. Our dog shot out the door but (praise God) he came back shortly, as did our cat. My son and I brought our pet rabbit and his cage in. The kids got in their respective shelters and my wife Sandra and I kept watch on the TV. The storm track on the TV looked like it would go just northeast of us. The indicated movement (as well as what I saw of the anvil) looked like it could go right over us.

Well, the local tower cams zeroed in on what they thought was a wall cloud. They thought the storm was nearing Bentonville. Then the power and TV went out and I told my wife to get in the bathroom. I wouldn't go outside, but in the dark I went straight to our living room window (facing south).

I saw what appeared to be three conical clouds bunched together like three great stalactites in front of a discolored mass that looked like rain...they were about a half-mile/-3/4 mile due south, and looked like they were headed for Wal-Mart's Technology center there. I kept waiting for them to rotate around one another but couldn't see that...then I started seeing what appeared to be a power flash or two. THEN I saw big square chunks of debris spin and lift into the air around the Technology center, and I headed for the bathroom. I prayed in the tub. My son prayed in the closet. All the time I could feel the house shaking just a bit and seemed to feel a few objects hit it.

Then I heard a strange noise...like a hissing sound. SSSSssss.....SSSSssss. Were these subvortices or suction spots? First thing I thought of was an old episode of "Star Trek" where there were people who had been "sped up" and their voices sounded like buzzing bees.

After the last hiss all was dead quiet as the low pressure was on top of us. I wasn't sure if we were going to get hit by another vortex but after a minute or two it appeared the action was over (the storm was moving about 50mph). I went to my north window and saw the wall cloud lit up by lightning and occasional explosions, moving off to the northeast.

Well, after everyone went out to take a look I was amazed...our neighbor to the west has a hole in his roof and his playhouse is smashed. Our neighbors to the north have gaping holes in their fences and several missing shingles. Our neighbor to the east had his roof scoured (on OUR side of the roof) to the wood, and the backglass of his van was blown out. And our neighbors to the south (closest to the main part of the tornado, apparently) have fences down, roof damage, etc. The house across the street to the south had a trampoline ring set right down over their tree. His hot tub was lifted up then dropped. A subdivision a mile east sustained heavy damage with roofs completely blown off. Some neighbors down the street lost windows and walls. We weren't in the hail area, either, yet north and west of us they got lots of it...my in-laws south of Gravette lost the globes off their lamp post from it.

And we've gotten away with (apparently) only damage to our central air unit on the east side of the house in east Bentonville. I can't tell any roof damage. Both our vehicles were left out and they were fine.

Prayer works...hope I'm never that close to a twister again.

[Mith242]

Thanks for the info KJW. Nice to hear some details. Glad it sounds like you didn't have too much damage. Also a good thing it sounds like you missed all the large hail that seemed to have occured just to the north of the tornadoes' path.