EF1 tornado in Osage County, Oklahoma

This is the second segment of a four-segment tornado. This tornado moved east from Ponca City in Kay County into Osage County and across McCord, where numerous trees were uprooted, power poles were blown down, and homes and businesses were damaged. The tornado continued to move east, roughly paralleling the Arkansas River, and moved back into Kay County, south of McFadden Cove. Based on this damage, maximum estimated wind in this segment of the tornado was 95 to 105 mph.

Thunderstorms developed over north central Oklahoma during the early evening of the 17th, as a cold front moved into the area. The atmosphere became moderately unstable ahead of the cold front across northeastern Oklahoma and deep-layer wind shear increased during the afternoon and evening with the approach of an upper level disturbance. The resulting combination of instability and wind shear supported the evolution of a supercell thunderstorm that produced a couple tornadoes in Osage County. The thunderstorms also produced damaging wind.

As the cold front progressed through eastern Oklahoma during the late evening of the 17th and early morning hours of the 18th, thunderstorms continued to develop across the area. The strongest thunderstorm produced golf ball size hail in Choctaw County.