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EF1 tornado in Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma

Tornado April 19, 2023 · Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma

EF1
Rating
4.2 mi
Whole path
750 yd
Path width
$775K
Damage as recorded

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

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 750 yards (0.43 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF1 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF1 is moderate damage: roofs badly stripped, mobile homes pushed off foundations or overturned, windows broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 86–110 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 eleventh tornado moved into Pottawatomie County from Cleveland County, crossing the county line just south of Lindsey Street/Little River Road. The tornado was becoming narrower quickly as it crossed the county line, from a maximum of 2200 yard width in Cleveland County to about 750 yards wide as it crossed the county line and continued to become narrower until dissipating about 3/4 mile after moving into Pottawatomie County. A home and a mobile home had shingle and siding damage, and trees and power poles were also damaged.

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 Pink (35.2000, -97.1420).

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 1095007. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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