TornadoLookup

Home / Oklahoma / Mcclain

EF2 tornado in McClain County, Oklahoma

Tornado February 26, 2023 · McClain County, Oklahoma

EF2
Rating
26.1 mi
Whole path
600 yd
Path width
12
Injuries
$50.2M
Damage as recorded

NOAA records this tornado county by county. Its path ran through McClain County → Cleveland County; the totals above are for the whole tornado.

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 600 yards (0.34 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF2 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF2 is considerable damage: roofs torn off well-built houses, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, consistent with estimated gusts of 111–135 mph. The rating comes from a survey of the worst damage after the storm, not from a wind measurement, so it says as much about what the tornado hit as about how strong it was.

What the National Weather Service wrote

This tornado developed just west of Pennsylvania Avenue about 1/2 mile south of 290th Street where it took the roof off an outbuilding. The tornado moved east-northeast damaging a mobile home along 290th Street, and then snapped a couple of power poles as moved into the city limits of Goldsby just east of SW 24th Avenue. The tornado caused roof and fence damage in a neighborhood near NW 12th Avenue and Center Road in Goldsby before moving across the Goldsby airport damaging hangars. The tornado then crossed the Canadian River into Cleveland County.

The wider storm

A powerful storm system, with highly anomalous magnitudes of wind shear and moisture for late February, impacted the forecast area on the evening of the 26th. A broken line of severe thunderstorms developed across the eastern Texas Panhandle/far western Oklahoma and quickly swept through much of the forecast area. Widespread wind damage, including gusts near 90 mph, along with a record number of tornadoes (13) for February occurred. Several reports of large hail were also received. Behind the line of thunderstorms, a tight pressure gradient and strong westerly low-level jet allowed widespread 50-60 mph winds gusts to continue through the late evening hours.

Began near Cole (35.1230, -97.5500).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

13 more tornadoes the National Weather Service filed under this storm episode.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 1082890. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

Tornadoes near your address

See every tornado that passed near a place you know, measured to its path.