F1 Tornado — Creek, Oklahoma

1999-05-03 · near Sapulpa, Creek, Oklahoma

Event narrative

The same system that earlier caused a destructive tornado in Stroud and a less destructive tornado in southwest Creek County produced an F1 tornado which first touched down in the north side of Sapulpa near OK Hwy 97 and Interstate 44. The tornado then skipped through an industrial area before moving across I-44. From there, the tornado travelled northeast parallel to and just south of the New Sapulpa Road (OK Hwy 66), taking out a string of homes and businesses before eventually reaching Tulsa County. This tornado tracked a total of 7 miles, 5.5 miles of which was in Creek County. The Hilton Mobile Home Park was especially hard-hit, where about 15 mobile homes were damaged or destroyed. Twenty-four residents of the mobile home park were treated on the scene for minor injuries, but none required a hospital visit. Needless to say, this tornado also blew down numerous power lines and trees. All in all, along its path in Creek County, this tornado heavily damaged 12 homes and caused light to moderate damage to about 150 others. Twenty mobile homes were heavily damaged, and 25 businesses were damaged. Total property damage in Creek County is estimated at $5.5 million. For more information on this tornado, see the Tulsa County Tornado entry for information on the last 1.5 miles of its track.

Wider weather episode

Summary of events for May 3-4 1999:Following a week-long blocking weather pattern, a strong upper level trough finally moved out of the southwestern U.S. Interactions with a dryline in western Oklahoma and a slow-moving cold front brought the largest tornado outbreak in Oklahoma history from the afternoon of May 3 through the afternoon of May 4. Most notable was the F5 tornado that moved through southern parts of the Oklahoma City metro area. While the loss of life and the heaviest property damage was limited to central Oklahoma, eastern Oklahoma got into the act with a significant number of tornadoes.While there were dozens of individual storms on May 3 and 4, there are two storms in eastern Oklahoma that stand out as outstanding. The first outstanding storm moved northeast along the I-44 corridor on the evening of May 3, causing F3 damage to Stroud in Lincoln County. The storm went on to cause significant F1 damage in Sapulpa and southwestern portions of the city of Tulsa and millions of dollars in damage.The second outstanding storm got its start in southeast Oklahoma well south of McAlester. This storm moved northeast across Pushmataha, Latimer, Haskell, LeFlore and Sequoyah Counties, producing several damaging tornadoes along the way. The final tornado touched down in Sequoyah County and tracked 39 miles to near Fayetteville, AR, producing F3 damage in an unpopulated forest in Adair County.Following a very wet April that saturated area grounds, another slow-moving weather system made flash flooding another serious problem to deal with as most rainfall quickly ran off into creeks, streams and mainstem rivers. One flash flood in Vinita caused millions of dollars in damage following the flooding of dozens of homes.

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Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 5700323. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.