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EF3 tornado in McClain County, Oklahoma

Tornado April 19, 2023 · McClain County, Oklahoma

EF3
Rating
10.9 mi
Path length
1,200 yd
Path width
1
Death
2
Injuries
$4.0M
Damage as recorded
EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 1,200 yards (0.68 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF3 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF3 is severe damage: whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, consistent with estimated gusts of 136–165 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

The third tornado of the outbreak, the Cole-Goldsby Tornado, was the most destructive of the outbreak. The multiple-vortex tornado touched down near Rockwell Avenue south of 260th Street and moved in an erratic path, generally east and east-northeast through Cole. Many homes and mobile homes were damaged or destroyed near and in Cole. A man was killed in a destroyed mobile home in the far western portion of Cole. A woman was injured in a nearby mobile home, but died of a heart attack on the way to the hospital (indirect fatality). EF3 rated damage was found to at least three homes on Portland Avenue and Main Street in Cole with most exterior walls removed.

After moving through Cole and crossing State Highway 74B, the tornado continued to move northeast, then becoming narrower and turning northerly as it past 290th Street/Chestnut Road, moving between Western Avenue and Santa Fe Avenue just west of the town of Goldsby and dissipating before reaching State Highway 9. It continued to produce roof damage (up to EF2) to homes and tree damage.

The wider storm

Broad troughing was present aloft across the Western US during the afternoon/evening of the 19th. An area of surface low-pressure slowly deepened and moved towards north-central Kansas, with dryline extending from central Kansas through western-north Texas by the late afternoon hours. A well-timed lead upper wave, combined with broken insolation, led to the development of a few supercell thunderstorms across central Oklahoma. Multiple instances of large to very large (>2 inches) hail, along with 18 tornadoes, occurred across central Oklahoma.

Began near Dibble (35.0820, -97.6340).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 1094927. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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