National Weather Service teams assessing damage from Tuesday storms

Team members with the National Weather Service were spread across four states Tuesday, including Southeast Missouri, assessing straight-line wind damage that a meteorologist said is spread across the Paducah, Ky., office's entire coverage area -- a total of 58 counties.

Robin Smith, meteorologist with the weather service, said after 7 p.m. that a team confirmed an EF-0 tornado touched down southwest of Patton, Mo. The tornado measured 100 yards wide and three-fourths of a mile long.

They're also following up on reports of a tornado touchdown in Randles in Cape Girardeau County, Beverly Poole of the weather service said. That touchdown was not confirmed Wednesday.

The weather service called Tuesday's storms a bow echo event, which means straight-line winds moved through their four-state warning area -- Missouri, Kentucky, Southern Illinois and southwest Indiana. Areas of circulation can develop along the leading edge of the bow echo, where brief tornadoes can occur, according to the weather service.

"The damage that's pretty common is trees that were blown over and snapped. Telephone poles snapped, too," Poole said.

The weather service recorded a peak wind of 103 mph blowing west of Vienna, Ill. Poole said the winds picked up speed when the storm was over Southern Illinois.

A weather service team in the rural area of Randles surveyed damages to determine whether reports of a tornado from the county's emergency manager, Richard Knaup and Delta's assistant fire chief, Kevin Gramlisch, were accurate. Poole said they were told it touched down briefly, taking down trees and a power pole, and blew out a window in a home. About half of the village's residents were without power Tuesday night.

"An EF-0 tornado is sometimes very hard to detect; you're looking at the smallest of things," Poole said.

Gramlisch was about a half a mile from his home in Randles on Cape Girardeau County Road 272 when he first saw what appeared to be a tornado on the ground around 9 p.m. He guessed it was approximately five miles from his location.

"A couple moments later it appeared to be lifting," he said. "From that point, it got extremely windy and the hail went from pea-sized to somewhere to the size of a quarter. It was raining so hard, you couldn't see 30 feet in front of the truck."

Knaup, who was in contact with Gramlisch during the night, said the Delta spotter seemed relieved to see the cell lift from the ground.

"Well, it was headed in the direction of my house. I really was quite relieved," Gramlisch said.

According to dispatchers and law enforcement in Cape Girardeau, Bollinger and Scott counties, no injuries were reported as a result of the storm, but more than 1,800 of Cape Girardeau residents were without power during the heart of the storm. Less than 50 were still without power at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday.

Knaup traveled the entire county Wednesday, noting the worst damage near Daisy and Freidheim, Mo., where some county roads were closed due to debris. Knaup said several barns and sheds were destroyed in the area and in the northern part of the county along the Interstate three heads of cattle were found dead.

"It's all led me to believe it was straight-line winds and not tornadic activity," he said.

In Bollinger County, emergency manager Jim Bollinger said around 3 p.m. Wednesday the worst damage from Tuesday's storm was around 10 miles north of Marble Hill, Mo. A tree fell on the roof of a home on Highway Y, about 16 miles west of Marble Hill. No one in the home was hurt, according to Bollinger.

ehevern@semissourian.com

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