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F1 tornado in Beckham County, Oklahoma

Tornado April 15, 2003 · Beckham County, Oklahoma

Rating

1.5 mi

Path length

200 yd

Path width

Injury

$1.0M

Damage as recorded

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

NOAA recorded where this tornado touched down but not where it lifted, so it appears as a point. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What F1 means. This tornado was rated on Fujita’s original scale, used until 2007. F1 meant moderate damage: roofs badly stripped, mobile homes pushed off foundations or overturned, windows broken; the scale paired it with winds of 73–112 mph, figures later judged too high, especially toward the top of the scale, and revised downward in the Enhanced Fujita scale. Ratings then, as now, came from the damage.

What the National Weather Service wrote

A tornado moved from 2 miles SSW to 0.5 miles SSE of Sweetwater causing major damage to portions of the Sweetwater school. A man received minor injuries when the trailer he was in rolled before coming to rest next to a fence. Several fence posts that had been cemented into the ground at the baseball field were uprooted and a forty foot by forty foot barn was destroyed.

Began near Mayfield (35.2500, -97.6000).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

F1 Roger Mills County F1 Roger Mills County F1 Jackson County F1 Harmon County F1 Oklahoma County F0 Roger Mills County F0 Jackson County

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 5351187. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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