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EF2 tornado in Love County, Oklahoma

Tornado April 19, 2025 · Love County, Oklahoma

EF2
Rating
1.3 mi
Path length
300 yd
Path width
$300K
Damage as recorded
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 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

This tornado developed in far southwestern Love County about one mile north of the Red River and 1 mile east of the Jefferson County line. This slow-moving tornado initially moved northwest and then east. A house suffered significant roof and exterior wall damage and a church suffered roof damage. Trees and power lines were also damaged.

The wider storm

A severe weather and flash flood episode occurred across central and southern portions of the WFO Norman Forecast Area from the evening of the 19th into the early morning hours of the 20th. A slow-moving upper system continued to approach the area on the 19th. This, along with strong/moist low-level ascent atop a quasi-stationary boundary, helped initiate widespread thunderstorms across the region mentioned above. Strong wind shear and instability, especially along and ahead of the surface boundary, promoted organized thunderstorms, producing hail, wind and tornadoes. A few strong tornadoes also occurred (near Courtney in Love County and Little City in Marshall County). This episode also observed the first fatal weak (F/EF0-1) tornado since 1988 across the WFO Norman Forecast Area. Flash flooding also became a concern by the late evening of the 19th, with two flood-related fatalities occurring in the city of Moore, as multiple vehicles were swept off of Eastern Avenue into a nearby creek.

Began near Rubottom (33.9160, -97.5420).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 1254289. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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