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F1 tornado in Muskogee County, Oklahoma

Tornado June 1, 1999 · Muskogee County, Oklahoma

F1
Rating
2.3 mi
Path length
100 yd
Path width
$2.0M
Damage as recorded
EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 100 yards (0.06 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. 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

An F1 tornado touched down near the Port of Muskogee and moved south for 2.25 miles, lifting just south of Three Forks Park. This tornado destroyed three structures belonging to one business, destroyed two business outbuildings at 3-Forks Park, caused minor damage to one business under construction, and affected eight single family dwellings. The most newsworthy result of this tornado was damage directly inflicted upon the OG&E electrical generation plant. The tornado damaged a coal conveyor belt and a cooling tower. The damage was enough to shut down two of the plant's four coal-powered generating units. At the Fansteel plant, six buildings were torn down by the tornado, causing up to $1.5 million damage there.

The wider storm

Summary of events for the afternoon and evening of June 1 1999:A cold front moving in from the northwest moved into an extremely unstable air mass on the afternoon of June 1. Along the front, an isolated supercell thunderstorm developed around the Pryor/Locust Grove area and then moved in a slow and unusual south-southwest direction. This storm produced very large hail in addition to several strong tornadoes. This storm also produced eastern Oklahoma's first killer tornado in at least half of a decade.

Began near Ft Gibson (35.7800, -95.2800).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 5700777. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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