F2 tornado, Kinta, Oklahoma, June 8, 1998

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 mph

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

3. F2113 to 157 mphthis tornado

   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.

Rating

F2

Date

June 8, 1998

Touchdown

9:55 PM CDT (02:55 UTC)

Path length

0.5 miles (0.8 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$60,000

County

Haskell County

Touchdown point

35.080, -95.230

Lift-off point

35.080, -95.230

Record number

1030

Summary of events for the evening of June 8 and the early morning of June 9 1998:A classic southern plains severe weather event shaped up on the afternoon and evening of June 8 as a number of isolated severe thunderstorms developed over central Oklahoma to the east of a dryline. The first severe thunderstorm to affect eastern Oklahoma scraped the northwestern part of Osage County, causing a report of a severe thunderstorm gust. This storm quickly died as it entered Kansas.A second more serious severe thunderstorm formed west of Oklahoma City and tracked all the way to the Arkansas state line south of Fort Smith, traversing Pittsburg, Haskell, and Le Flore Counties. This storm travelled east along an instability axis and a warm front. From a radar perspective, this storm was impressive in that it kept a classic, well-defined hook on its entire journey across southeast Oklahoma. From a human perspective, this storm was impressive in that it produced ten tornadoes in southeast Oklahoma, hail as large as golfballs, damaging thunderstorm winds, and torrential flooding rains.A third cluster of severe thunderstorms developed over Creek County and moved east across Okmulgee, Muskogee, Cherokee, and Adair Counties before weakening as it entered Arkansas. These storms slowed their movement across Muskogee County and regeneration along the southwest flank of the storms caused torrential rainfalls that dumped nearly three inches of rain in northern Muskogee, southern Cherokee, southern Adair, and northern Sequoyah Counties. In addition to flooding rains, these storms produced hail as large as nickels and damaging thunderstorm winds.

An F2 tornado destroyed one single family dwelling, while another single family dwelling received major damage.

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

65 minutes of warning. NWS TSA issued a tornado warning for this county at 01:50 UTC, 65 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 03:00 UTC.

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 Storm Prediction Center had this point in a General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 10:33 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 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.

The Western Arkansas radar (KSRX), 82 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 02:55 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.

The live radar over the trackEvery 1998 tornado in OklahomaEvery tornado in Oklahoma since 1950Warnings in force in Oklahoma nowThe forecast where you are

24 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

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.

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