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EF2 tornado in Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma

Tornado April 19, 2023 · Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma

EF2
Rating
6.3 mi
Whole path
700 yd
Path width
$105K
Damage as recorded

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

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 700 yards (0.40 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

The fourteenth tornado of the outbreak developed north of Pink southeast of the intersection of Walker Road and Waco Road, and moved north-northwest and then northwest before moving into Cleveland County south of Lake Road. In Pottawatomie County, a number of homes, mobile homes and a church were damaged by the tornado with at least one home where the entire roof was removed.

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 (35.2830, -97.1030).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

EF3 McClain County 1 deadEF3 Pottawatomie CountyEF2 Cleveland CountyEF2 Cleveland CountyEF2 Pottawatomie CountyEF1 Grady CountyEF1 McClain CountyEF1 McClain CountyEF1 McClain CountyEF1 McClain CountyEF1 Cleveland CountyEF1 Pottawatomie CountyEF1 Pottawatomie CountyEF0 Cleveland CountyEF0 Cleveland CountyEF0 Cleveland County

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 1095051. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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