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EF2 tornado in Mayes County, Oklahoma

Tornado August 10, 2011 · Mayes County, Oklahoma

EF2

Rating

5.0 mi

Whole path

400 yd

Path width

Death

Injuries

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

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 400 yards (0.23 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 is the third of three segments of this tornado. As the tornado crossed back into Mayes County, it destroyed a double wide mobile home and damaged a single wide mobile home just north of the E590 Road. A woman was killed in the double wide mobile home and two people were injured in the other mobile home. Trees were uprooted and snapped and debris from the double wide mobile home was transported several hundred yards downstream. The tornado damaged another mobile home south of the E580 Road where it destroyed a greenhouse. Numerous trees were uprooted and snapped along the path until the tornado dissipated just south of the E570 Road. Based on this damage, maximum estimated wind in this segment of the tornado was about 125 mph.

August is one of the least active months for tornadoes in this part of the country so the intensity of this tornado was even more unusual. In fact, this is only the 4th strong tornado (EF-2 or EF-3) that has been confirmed in eastern Oklahoma since 1950.

The wider storm

Strong to severe thunderstorms developed during the early morning hours of August 10th near a stationary frontal boundary that extended across eastern Oklahoma. Strong, damaging winds occurred across much of eastern Oklahoma as these storms moved across the region as well as a tornado.

Began near Locust Grove (36.1616, -95.1082).

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 340632. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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