EF2 Tornado — Mccurtain, Oklahoma

2022-11-04 · near Pickens, Mccurtain, Oklahoma

Event narrative

An EF-2 tornado with estimated maximum winds near 125 mph touched down in extreme Northwest McCurtain County near the Pickens community. The tornado touched down off of Pickens Road where it completed destroyed a chicken house, removed large sections of a roof of a home, and snapped multiple hardwood trees. The tornado then impacted a double-wide mobile home that was tied down with straps, which were snapped or footings pulled out of the ground. The mobile home was vaulted to the northwest and led to a fatality of a 90 year old male inside. A vehicle was also tossed and rolled at this location as well. The tornado continued moving northeast and uprooted multiple hardwood and softwood trees as it crossed Mount Zion Church Road, Glover Road, and Cedarwood Lane, before lifting near Coleman Road.

Wider weather episode

A strong upper level trough progressed through the Rockies and into the Central and Southern Plains during the day on November 4th, enhancing strong surface low development over the Upper Red River Valley into Oklahoma. This produced a strong pressure gradient over the Southern Plains and Lower Mississippi Valley, allowing for very rich Gulf moisture to surge north across the Ark-La-Tex area into Eastern Oklahoma and much of Arkansas. This generated moderate instability across these areas during the afternoon, as temperatures rose into the lower to mid 80s. Very strong wind shear was also in place over these areas, with the upper trough reinforcing a cold front southeast into Southeast Oklahoma, Western Arkansas, and East Texas. This trough enhanced large scale forcing along the front, with discrete supercell development also occurring ahead of the main line of storms over portions of East Texas, Southeast Oklahoma, and Southwest Arkansas. Multiple tornadoes, some strong, touched down across these areas, with additional instances of damaging winds also reported before the line of storms overtook these discrete supercells and shifted east across the remainder of East Texas, Southwest Arkansas, and into North Louisiana during the evening and overnight hours.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (34.3908, -94.9909)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1057264. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.