On Easter Sunday, April 20, 2025 a significant tornado outbreak affected the states of Missouri and Arkansas causing widespread property damage, downed trees, power outages, and sadly, several fatalities. On the NOAA Storm Predication Center (SPC) day 2 categorical severe weather outlook much of Missouri and northern Arkansas was upgraded from a Slight Risk to a Enhanced Risk of seeing severe weather. By early Sunday, a low pressure center sat in northeast Oklahoma with a warm front draped across southeast Kansas stretching towards central Missouri. A cold front stretched near/south of the low pressure in eastern Oklahoma. A broken line of storms would eventually come together in eastern Kansas and eastern Oklahoma moving towards Missouri and Arkansas. Around mid-day, the first hint of severe weather occurred in central Missouri, particularly in Dallas and Callaway counties where damaging winds caused property damage ranging from a large tree falling and destroying a car port to a roof on a house partially being peeled off. There were also many trees downed or limbs snapped along with power poles/lines down. It would be later be confirmed that an EF2 tornado had touched down in that area with the community of Guthrie, MO most affected. Back to eastern Kansas and eastern Oklahoma. As the line of storms began to intensify with very heavy rainfall and gusty winds thunderstorm wanings were issued for Cherokee County in southeast Kansas and for Ottawa County in northeast Oklahoma. While monitoring KINX and KSGF radars, my weather partner and I quickly noticed some rotation near Baxter Springs in Cherokee County. Within minutes, the National Weather Service (NWS) in Springfield, Missouri, issued a Tornado Warning at 2:15 PM CDT for eastern Cherokee County and western Jasper County in Missouri. In seconds the tornado sirens began to wail across city of Joplin. Fortunately for the heavily populated city of Joplin, the tornado-warned storm tracked to the northeast, moving from near Riverton just north of Galena, and then crossing the state line into the Carl Junction area. Along its initial and final track, the twister caused damage to homes, businesses, and outbuildings, while also downing power poles, power lines, and trees. In the Riverton/Galena area the tornado touched down near Empire Lake causing an estimated hundreds of trees to be downed. There was also in the path scattered damage to roofs and buildings. In the Carl Junction area the Joplin Globe reports more than 70 buildings were damaged with debris being blown around downtown causing additional damage
