Landspout Tornado in Lonoke County

A brief landspout type tornado touched down in Lonoke County Monday afternoon according to The National Weather Service in Little Rock. This was not a classic tornado produced by a rotating thunderstorm, but rather a landspout which is basically a waterspout over land. A landspout sometimes forms underneath a rapidly growing towering cumulus cloud away from thunderstorms on very warm and humid days. They typically form during the Summer months and are very weak and short lived compared to ordinary tornadoes. Below is a picture of the funnel taken by a storm Chaser in Lonoke County Monday afternoon.

 The storm chaser noted to the weather service that there was no thunder at the time. According to The Weather Service, there was no storm showing any signs of rotation in the area, which is why there was no warning issued.  Below is a map showing the estimated location of the landspout tornado.

According to John Robinson of The National Weather Service in Little Rock, the landspout touched down roughly 7 miles South-Southwest of Carlisle in Lonoke County near Arkansas Highway 13. There was no damage or even much in the way of any physical evidence of a tornado touchdown associated with the landspout. Given the lack of any discernible damage, the landspout is classified as an EF0 tornado with no real path length or width. An EF0 is the weakest classification of a torando with winds less than 85 MPH. The Weather Service used pictures to determine that the funnel briefly touched down. The landspout still counts as a tornado though, which brings the Arkansas 2012 tornado count to 11.