EF1 tornado in Choctaw County, Oklahoma

This tornado developed west of Hugo and moved eastward across town. Numerous homes and businesses were damaged, storage buildings were destroyed, trees were uprooted, signs were blown down, and power poles were snapped. Based on this damage, maximum estimated wind in the tornado was 95 to 105 mph.

Severe thunderstorms developed along and ahead of a dry line across central Oklahoma during the afternoon of May 9th. The storms moved across eastern Oklahoma during the evening hours. Prior to the storms moving into the area, the atmosphere ahead of the dry line in eastern Oklahoma had become very unstable. This instability, combined with very strong wind shear associated with a strong trough of low pressure that moved into the Southern Plains from the Southern Rockies, resulted in the development of supercell thunderstorms. One of these supercells produced multiple tornadoes as it tracked along and near an outflow boundary from morning thunderstorms, which had settled across southeastern Oklahoma by the afternoon. One of the tornadoes was long-lived and damaging. In addition to the tornadoes in southeastern Oklahoma, the severe thunderstorms produced hail up to golfball size and damaging wind gusts across other portions of eastern Oklahoma.