2 tornadoes confirmed in Arkansas; straight-line winds blew trees onto homes, weather service says

UPDATE:

A second tornado has been confirmed in Arkansas during severe storms Wednesday.

The National Weather Service said tornado damage was confirmed near Holiday Island in Carroll County.

The agency said a survey of the area was ongoing, but the tornado was at least EF-1 strength.

EARLIER:

The National Weather Service in Little Rock confirmed an EF-0 tornado in northern Yell County on Thursday morning.

Meteorologist Charles Dalton said the tornado touched down around 10:10 a.m. Wednesday west of Arkansas 27 and west and southwest of Dardanelle. The tornado was about 50 yards wide and had a half-mile wide track, Dalton said.

Dalton called the twister a “small, short tornado.”

The damage from the tornado was “embedded in a larger area of straight-line damage,” Dalton said, adding that some power line supports and trees had been affected by the winds.

The weather service said in a statement that the strongest winds were about 90 mph and that several trees "were uprooted and fell onto homes" in Rover, Plainview, Danville and Dardanelle.

"The straight-line winds produced significantly more damage than the small tornado in northern Yell County in this instance," the weather service said.

A survey crew also investigated wind damage in Brinkley in Monroe County Thursday but found it came from thunderstorm winds Wednesday afternoon, not a tornado, according to a statement.

Dalton said the weather service received reports of “widespread tree damage” and structure damage from winds that blew through Brinkley shortly before 5 p.m. Wednesday.

Read Friday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.

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