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EF1 tornado in Mayes County, Oklahoma

Tornado June 18, 2023 · Mayes County, Oklahoma

EF1
Rating
4.1 mi
Path length
300 yd
Path width
EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 300 yards (0.17 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 tornado uprooted trees, and snapped numerous large tree limbs. Based on this damage, maximum estimated wind in the tornado was 90 to 100 mph.

The wider storm

Severe thunderstorms developed over the Texas and Oklahoma Panhandles, southwestern Kansas, and southeastern Colorado during the afternoon of the 17th, along and ahead of a cold front as a strong upper level disturbance translated into the Southern Plains. These storms organized into a surging line of severe thunderstorms as they moved east across northern Oklahoma, reaching eastern Oklahoma during the late evening. Moderately strong instability was in place ahead of the storms, and the wind fields aloft, along with the deep-layer and low-level wind shear, became strong as the upper level disturbance approached from the west. The line of thunderstorms produced widespread wind damage across eastern Oklahoma, with wind gusts in excess of 100 mph at times. Widespread damage to the utility infrastructure occurred, especially throughout counties in northeastern Oklahoma, with nearly a million people without power during the peak of the storm. Some of these outages lasted more than a week. Many trees were blown down, and widespread damage to homes and businesses occurred. A tree fell onto a manufactured home near Oilton in Creek County, killing one of the occupants and injuring three others. Three tornadoes also occurred across portions of northeastern Oklahoma, each forming on the leading edge of the squall line.

Other severe thunderstorms developed during the late evening hours of the 17th near a stationary front that stretched across northern Texas and southern Oklahoma. These storms produced damaging wind across portions of southeastern Oklahoma.

Began near Tip (36.3910, -95.1700).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 1112572. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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