Tornadoes · United States · Oklahoma · 1961

F1 tornado, McClain County, Oklahoma, February 17, 1961

This F1 tornado ran 0.5 miles across McClain County on February 17, 1961, touching down at 4:30 PM GMT-6 and reaching 17 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $50 to $500 of property damage.

The rating scale

Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.

  1. F040 to 72 mph

    Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

  2. F173 to 112 mphthis tornado

    Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

  3. F2113 to 157 mph

    Considerable damage. Roofs torn off well-built houses, frame homes shifted on their foundations, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, cars lifted off the ground.

  4. F3158 to 206 mph

    Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.

  5. F4207 to 260 mph

    Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

  6. F5261 to 318 mph

    Incredible damage. Strong frame houses swept off their foundations, car-sized missiles thrown more than 100 meters, steel-reinforced concrete badly damaged, high-rise buildings deformed.

  7. Unrated

    The survey recorded a tornado but could not put a number on it, most often because it crossed open country and damaged nothing a rating can be read from.

The record

Rating
F1, estimated from the damage record rather than surveyed
Date
February 17, 1961
Touchdown
4:30 PM GMT-6 (22:30 UTC)
Path length
0.5 miles (0.8 km)
Path width
17 yards (16 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$50 to $500
County
McClain County
Touchdown point
34.880, -97.500
Record number
4

The air that afternoon

The radiosonde launches on either side of the tornado, from the nearest station that was launching then, drawn and analyzed the way Storm Lab does: the same diagram, the same parcel and shear definitions SPC's mesoanalysis uses.

Ok Cty/Will Rgrs, OK (KOKC), 12:00Z

10.5 hours before the tornado, 59 km from the path. February 17, 1961.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Ok Cty/Will Rgrs, OK at 12:00Z on 1961-02-17Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 20 joules per kilogram, CIN -226, lifted condensation level 988 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Ok Cty/Will Rgrs, OK at 12:00Z on 1961-02-17The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 190 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 35 knots.193958Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
20 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-226 J/kg
Surface CAPE
112 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
988 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
35 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
27 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
190 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
80 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.4 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Ok Cty/Will Rgrs, OK (KOKC), 00:00Z

1.5 hours after it, 59 km from the path. February 18, 1961.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Ok Cty/Will Rgrs, OK at 00:00Z on 1961-02-18Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 803 joules per kilogram, CIN -37, lifted condensation level 969 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Ok Cty/Will Rgrs, OK at 00:00Z on 1961-02-18The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 59 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 55 knots.19395878Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
803 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-37 J/kg
Surface CAPE
876 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
969 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
55 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
28 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
59 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
29 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.2
Supercell composite
0.8
0-3 km lapse rate
6.9 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Oklahoma City (OKC), 57 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
21:00 UTC7159160° 14 kt1002.4
22:00 UTC7160160° 15 kt1001
23:00 UTC6359160° 17 kt1001TSRA
00:00 UTC6559140° 12 kt1000.3

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 1961 tornado in OklahomaEvery tornado in Oklahoma since 1950Warnings in force in Oklahoma nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of February 17, 1961

5 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
February 173:00 PM GMT-6F0Chase, KS0.110
February 174:45 PM GMT-6F3Oklahoma, OK16.83007$5,000 to $50,000
February 176:15 PM GMT-6F3Pontotoc, OK73.030011$500,000 to $5 million
February 177:00 PM GMT-6F2Pottawatomie, OK6.6101$5,000 to $50,000
February 1711:00 PM GMT-6F2Cherokee, KS7.3880$500 to $5,000

What this means

Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. Tornado counts rise through the record as reporting improved, so a year in the 1950s is not comparable with one today except for the strongest tornadoes, which were always noticed.

Sources

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.