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EF1 tornado in Hughes County, Oklahoma

Tornado April 19, 2025 · Hughes County, Oklahoma

EF1
Rating
2.1 mi
Path length
150 yd
Path width
1
Death
1
Injury
$400K
Damage as recorded
EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 150 yards (0.09 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

Tornado began south of Spaulding, moving to the north into Spaulding and then northeast. EF1 damage was found in Spaulding at a manufactured home which suffered major damage along E138 Road where one man was killed and a woman injured. Several homes had at least minor damage, with several homes losing roofs, windows, and walls.

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 Spaulding (35.0040, -96.4500).

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 1254340. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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