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EF0 tornado in Muskogee County, Oklahoma

Tornado October 20, 2019 · Muskogee County, Oklahoma

EF0
Rating
8.3 mi
Path length
400 yd
Path width
$2K
Damage as recorded
EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 400 yards (0.23 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF0 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF0 is light damage: shingles and siding peeled, gutters torn, branches broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 65–85 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

A tornado developed southeast of Boynton to the south of W 83rd Street S, and moved northeast to a point north of W 33rd Street S. It uprooted a couple medium sized trees, blew down a power pole, and snapped large tree limbs. Much of the tornado path was across farmland, so the damage noted above generally occurred as the tornado crossed section line roads. Based on this damage, maximum estimated wind in the tornado was 80 to 85 mph.

The wider storm

Thunderstorms developed over central Oklahoma during the early evening of the 20th, along and just ahead of a cold front moving into the area. The atmosphere ahead of the front was very unstable. Wind fields across the region strengthened with the approach of a strong upper level storm system, and very strong deep layer shear developed over eastern Oklahoma by the evening. The combination of strong instability and very strong wind shear promoted the development of supercell thunderstorms, that produced hail up to baseball size and damaging wind. As the thunderstorms moved eastward during the late evening, they eventually organized into a solid line of thunderstorms. Low level wind shear increased across the region during the evening, and this supported the development of several tornadoes, in addition to the very strong downburst wind that some of the thunderstorms produced.

Began near Boynton (35.6351, -95.6311).

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 862865. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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