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EF2 tornado in Tulsa County, Oklahoma

Tornado March 25, 2015 · Tulsa County, Oklahoma

EF2
Rating
11.1 mi
Whole path
800 yd
Path width
1
Death
30
Injuries
$2.1M
Damage as recorded

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

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 800 yards (0.45 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 segment of a three segment tornado. The tornado moved into Tulsa County at W Archer Road to the east of S 209th W Avenue. The roofs of several homes were damaged and trees were uprooted as it crossed S 193rd W Avenue. The tornado moved southeast crossing Highway 412, where it snapped or uprooted numerous trees and blew a tractor trailer off the road. A doughnut shop was destroyed at S 177th W Avenue, homes were damaged, and trees and poles were snapped. It crossed the Arkansas River and moved through the River Oaks Estates Mobile Home Park where it destroyed 58 mobile homes and two permanent homes. One fatality and about 30 injuries occurred in this park. The tornado crossed the Arkansas River again as it moved east-southeast toward Sand Springs, uprooting numerous trees before dissipating on the south side of Sand Springs, south of Highway 412 and just west of Highway 97. Based on this damage, maximum estimated wind in this segment of the tornado was 125 to 135 mph.

The wider storm

Severe thunderstorms developed during the afternoon hours to the east of a surface low pressure system located over southwestern Oklahoma and near a stationary frontal boundary that was draped across northeastern Oklahoma. Several of these storms developed supercell characteristics due to a very unstable air mass that was in place over the region coupled with strong vertical wind shear. These supercells produced several tornadoes, including a strong tornado that resulted in a fatality in Sand Springs. The storms also produced hail up to softball size and wind gusts to around 90 mph.

The storms evolved into a line during the evening hours and moved swiftly across eastern Oklahoma producing wind damage and hail to golfball size.

Locally heavy rainfall as a result of storms moving repeatedly across the same locations resulted in flash flooding. Two flash flood fatalities occurred in Muskogee County when a vehicle was driven into flood waters and was swept off the road.

Began near Wekiwa (36.1615, -96.2181).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 560188. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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