TornadoLookup

Home / Oklahoma / Nowata

EF1 tornado in Nowata County, Oklahoma

Tornado November 4, 2024 · Nowata County, Oklahoma

EF1
Rating
10.2 mi
Whole path
350 yd
Path width
$20K
Damage as recorded

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

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 350 yards (0.20 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 is the second segment of a two-segment tornado. The tornado moved into Nowata County west of the N 4100 Road. It moved northeast and dissipated east of the N 4100 Road, and north of the E 280 Road. Trees were uprooted in its path. Based on this damage, maximum estimated wind in this segment of the tornado was 90 to 100 mph.

The wider storm

Strong to severe thunderstorms developed into and across eastern Oklahoma during the late morning through afternoon of the 4th, in an unseasonably moist and unstable air mass ahead of an approaching cold front. The atmosphere became very unstable ahead of the thunderstorms. The deep-layer and low-level wind shear strengthened during the afternoon, in response to a strong storm system translating into the Southern Plains from the Southern Rockies. The combination of very unstable air and very strong wind shear resulted in the development of some supercell thunderstorms, which produced multiple tornadoes across northeast and east central Oklahoma, including a long-track significant tornado that affected Cherokee and Adair Counties before moving into Arkansas. Damaging wind gusts also occurred. Locally heavy rainfall resulted in flash flooding.

Began near Watova (36.5980, -95.7180).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 1219384. 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.