Tornado warnings in Jonesboro and Craighead County

When a tornado warning goes out for Jonesboro, the decision you make in the first few minutes matters more than anything else. This page is about those minutes: what the warning actually means, how often one has covered Craighead County in the last ten years, how long they tend to run, what the sirens can and can't tell you, and where to go. It is built from the warnings themselves, which the National Weather Service issues and Iowa State University's Iowa Environmental Mesonet archives (IEM warning archive).

Watch or warning: which one is it?

The two words sound alike and mean very different things (NWS tornado watch vs. warning):

Jonesboro sits in NWS Memphis's area, not Little Rock's. Every one of the Craighead County tornado warnings we counted below came from the Memphis office.

How often Craighead County gets a tornado warning

We pulled every National Weather Service event that included Craighead County (county code ARC031) from January 1, 2016 through December 31, 2025, using the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of NWS warnings. Over those ten years:

• 55 tornado warnings covered all or part of the county, spread over 23 different days. Severe storms often bring several warnings in a row as a storm moves across the county, so a bad night can mean three, six or eight separate warnings.
• 63 tornado watches included the county, and 223 severe thunderstorm warnings. Most watches never turn into a warning for Craighead County.
• The busiest year was 2025, with 17 warnings: March 14 to 15 (4), March 30 (2), April 2 (6), April 5 (4) and May 16 (1). The May 16 warning came the morning of the county's latest NOAA-logged tornado, an EF1; see our Craighead County tornado records.
• The single worst night was December 10, 2021, with 8 warnings between 6:07 and 9:24 p.m., the night of the long-track tornado described in our Jonesboro tornado history.
• 2019 had none. Years swing a lot: 1 in 2016 and 2023, 10 in 2020, 8 in both 2021 and 2022.

March and April account for 31 of the 55. December is the surprise: 9 warnings, more than May, June and September combined. That lines up with what the NWS says about Arkansas having a second severe season in November and December, so don't put the weather radio away after spring.

How long a Jonesboro warning lasts, and when it comes

Measured from the time each warning was issued to the expiration time it was issued with, the 55 warnings ran a median of 32 minutes, from 10 minutes for the shortest to 68 for the longest. That is your planning number. If it takes you longer than a few minutes to get the family, the dog and shoes into a shelter, the shelter needs to be closer or the routine needs practice.

Timing is the harder part. 28 of the 55 warnings, just over half, were issued between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m. (Central time), including 10 between 11 p.m. and 3 a.m., when most people are asleep. The hours from 5 to 9 p.m. were the busiest single stretch, with 30 warnings, so evening commutes, ballgames and supper are when one is most likely to catch you.

A few cautions about these numbers. A warning covering part of the county may not have covered your street. The count is of warnings, not tornadoes: many warned storms never produce one, and the NOAA tornado records are the place for confirmed touchdowns. And forecasters sometimes cancel a warning early or extend it with a new one, which our issue-to-expire measure doesn't capture.

Sirens: useful, but not your only alarm

The City of Jonesboro tests its outdoor sirens weekly, on Thursdays at noon. In February 2026 the city's E-911 director, Ronnie Sturch, told KAIT that those tests had turned up coverage gaps as the city grew, that E-911 had taken calls from residents who couldn't hear a siren, and that the city planned to relocate existing sirens within 60 to 90 days (KAIT, Feb. 19, 2026). In other words, a siren you can't hear isn't proof there's no warning.

Have at least two ways to be woken up at 2 a.m.: a phone with emergency alerts turned on and loud, a NOAA Weather Radio, or a local TV or radio app with alerts. The NWS puts it simply: know how your community sends warnings, and listen to local news or a NOAA Weather Radio during watches and warnings (NWS tornado preparedness). When a watch is issued, check that the safe room is clear and stocked.

Where to go when the warning hits

1. A safe room or storm shelter built to FEMA P-361 and ICC 500 is the best place to be. What those standards require is on our FEMA and ICC 500 page.
2. No shelter at home? Lowest floor, interior room or closet, as many walls between you and the outside as you can get, away from windows. Cover your head.
3. Mobile home, car or outdoors: the NWS says to get to the closest substantial shelter. That decision has to be made at the watch, not the warning.
4. Public shelters open on their own rules. Craighead County's Courthouse Annex shelter opens on a watch, and school shelters only when students aren't on campus. The full list of 28 is on public tornado shelters in Craighead County. With a median warning of about half an hour, driving to one after the warning is issued is usually too late.

If you have a private shelter in Jonesboro, add it to the city's E-911 storm shelter registry, which responders use after a storm to know where shelters are.

Getting a shelter before the next one

April is the peak, but December has been nearly as busy as March in this ten-year count. If you're thinking about a shelter, the options are an underground storm shelter in the yard or garage floor, or an above-ground safe room inside the house, and the storm shelter cost guide covers Jonesboro's $50 permit and what drives the price. Call the number on this page and a local installer who works Craighead County will take it from there.