Tornadoes · United States · Oklahoma · 1996

F0 tornado, Hooker, Oklahoma, May 26, 1996

This F0 tornado ran 1.0 miles across Texas County on May 26, 1996, touching down at 3:16 PM CDT and reaching 100 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $10,000 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 mphthis tornado

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

  2. F173 to 112 mph

    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
F0
Date
May 26, 1996
Touchdown
3:16 PM CDT (20:16 UTC)
Path length
1.0 miles (1.6 km)
Path width
100 yards (91 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$10,000
County
Texas County
Touchdown point
36.870, -101.280
Lift-off point
36.870, -101.270
Record number
942

What the Weather Service recorded

Thunderstorms produced large hail, strong wind and two tornadoes. Large hail did over $100,000 damage to the roof of a school in Guymon. Strong winds blew a vehicle off the road. A tornado just south of Guymon caused only minor damage and the track is an estimate. Wind and hail combined for the remainder of the damage across the area.

Thunderstorms produced large hail, strong wind and two tornadoes. Large hail did over $100,000 damage to the roof of a school in Guymon. Strong winds blew a vehicle off the road. A tornado just south of Guymon caused only minor damage and the track is an estimate. Wind and hail combined for the remainder of the damage across the area.

From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.

The warnings

23 minutes of warning. NWS AMA issued a tornado warning for this county at 19:53 UTC, 23 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 20:45 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
19:39 UTC20:30 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningAMA
19:53 UTC20:45 UTCTornado WarningAMA

Every warning and watch covering the touchdown point that day, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service products. Lead time is measured from the issue of the warning in force to the touchdown time in the database, both of which were recorded to the minute by different people.

The forecast that day

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 06:02 UTC.

SPC's Day 1 convective outlook as it stood when the tornado began, read at the touchdown point. The same archive is on the radar archive.

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.

Dodge City, (KDDC), 12:00Z

8.3 hours before the tornado, 157 km from the path. May 26, 1996.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Dodge City, at 12:00Z on 1996-05-26Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 0 joules per kilogram, CIN -39336, lifted condensation level 939 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCL10008507005003002001001 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, Dodge City, at 12:00Z on 1996-05-26The 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 -141 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 59 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
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-39336 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
939 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
59 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
16 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-141 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
82 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
4.5 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Dodge City, (KDDC), 00:00Z

3.7 hours after it, 157 km from the path. May 27, 1996.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Dodge City, at 00:00Z on 1996-05-27Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 0 joules per kilogram, CIN -62510, lifted condensation level 1843 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCL10008507005003002001001 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, Dodge City, at 00:00Z on 1996-05-27The 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 -89 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 79 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
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-62510 J/kg
Surface CAPE
7 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1843 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
79 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
33 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-89 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
-82 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.0 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Dodge City radar (KDDC), 152 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:13 UTC.

Open the radar archive at this moment, over the track

Reflectivity and velocity, decoded from the Level II archive in the browser. Volumes take a few seconds to open the first time.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 1996 tornado in OklahomaEvery tornado in Oklahoma since 1950Warnings in force in Oklahoma nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of May 26, 1996

20 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
May 266:50 AM EDTF0Monroe, FL0.110
May 262:53 PM CDTF0Texas, OK0.550$10,000
May 263:16 PM CDTF0Texas, OK1.075$10,000
May 263:25 PM CDTF0Kiowa, OK1.010
May 263:39 PM CDTF3Stevens, KS13.0200$190,000
May 264:03 PM CDTF2Seward, KS20.0450$300,000
May 264:20 PM CDTF0Haskell, KS4.030$10,000
May 264:35 PM CDTF3Haskell, KS28.0900$2.0 million
May 265:15 PM CDTF1Gray, KS10.0400$850,000
May 265:18 PM CDTF1Wichita, KS1.050$50,000
May 265:20 PM CDTF1Gray, KS3.050$70,000
May 265:44 PM ESTF0Pike, IN5.075$50,000
May 267:38 PM CDTF2Rogers, OK30.08801$290,000
May 268:36 PM CDTF0Labette, KS6.075
May 269:50 PM CDTF1Crawford, KS1.075$100,000
May 269:53 PM CDTF1Barton, MO3.0100$10,000
May 269:58 PM CDTF1Johnson, MO12.0100
May 2610:02 PM CDTF1Barton, MO0.250$10,000
May 2610:32 PM CDTF0McClain, OK0.125
May 2610:36 PM CDTF0Lafayette, MO0.220

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.