A large, devastating tornado northwest of Little Rock, AR lofted so much debris into the air that the tornado and its parent mesocyclone (broad column of rotation within the storm) were visible on 3-D radar imagery. The debris reached over 12,000 feet high as the up-to-a-mile-wide tornado tore a path through central Arkansas extending dozens of miles.

The tornado tore through the communities of Roland, Mayflower, Vilonia, and El Paso, Arkansas, which are all about 20-40 miles northwest of Little Rock in the center of the state.

The storm had a classic supercell signature on weather radar, showing a well-defined hook echo tipped with the mile-wide debris signature caused by the radar beam reflecting off the debris in the tornado.

The pictures coming in on Twitter are devastating.

So far NWA has missed the tornado threat. Here's a picture of the damage in Mayflower AR from long track tornado #arw pic.twitter.com/Gz7tDUZ7uC — Dan Skoff (@weatherdan) April 28, 2014

Complete wreckage in Mayflower. Two people pulled out of crushed car- being treated. Look to be ok pic.twitter.com/13foSdAHGj (@Dan_Grossman) — Tracy Solomon (@tracysolomon) April 28, 2014

Here is a pic of the Mayflower Tornado: pic.twitter.com/tX0ytxjqEi #WOW — Jaret Gold (@forecasterjaret) April 28, 2014

Tornado damage in Mayflower, AR"@ForbiddenH: Tornado damage in River Planation neighborhood in Mayflower, #arwx pic.twitter.com/17qhPhBRot" — Jennifer Watson (@JWatson_Wx) April 28, 2014

NEW: #Tornado Damage from I-40 at Mayflower, AR from Candice Rogers. She is family friend of @kenliereed. pic.twitter.com/X8VDgrUcA1 — Jim Van Fleet (@JamesVanFleet) April 28, 2014

[Stand-alone radar images via Gibson Ridge]