F2 tornado, Boley to Nuyaka, Oklahoma, October 4, 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

October 4, 1998

Touchdown

10:37 PM CDT (03:37 UTC)

Path length

27.0 miles (43.4 km)

Path width

1,410 yards (1289 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

4

Property damage

$510,000

Counties

Okfuskee and Okmulgee counties

Touchdown point

35.480, -96.450

Lift-off point

35.620, -96.170

Record number

500

Summary of tornado/severe events for October 4 PM - October 5 1998:Oklahoma's worst-ever October tornado outbreak took place on the evening of October 4. At least 22 tornadoes occurred throughout Oklahoma, of which seven were in northeast Oklahoma. This outbreak of severe weather resulted as a powerful upper level storm system moved across the central plains and surface low pressure developed over southwest Oklahoma. Warm humid air quickly invaded the area on the morning of October 4 and then collided with a cold front moving southward by evening. The threat from these storms ran the full range of possibilities from destructive tornadoes to damaging winds to very large hail up to the size of baseballs.Numerous storms occurred on the evening of October 4, mainly north of Interstate 40. The two most significant storms both moved eastward out of central Oklahoma. One produced an F1 tornado that passed through Pawnee. The other produced a 27-mile track F2 tornado that started in Okfuskee County and ended in Okmulgee County. This second storm later went on to produce considerable hail and wind damage in the city of Okmulgee. Many other thunderstorms developed during the evening in central Oklahoma, fanned by upper level winds in excess of 100 knots. These storms moved into northeast Oklahoma, causing additional severe weather late in the evening that gradually spread eastward to the Arkansas state line. After midnight, the storms congealed and became a slow-moving line of thunderstorms that sat over nearly the same area of northeast Oklahoma through the overnight hours. The severe threat gradually diminished through the night, and flooding became the main problem. For more information on the flooding, see the separate event entry for the flooding. By late on the afternoon of October 5, the slow-moving line had moved into southeast Oklahoma and flared up during the heat of the afternoon, causing a few additional severe weather reports in the form of strong winds.

A significant long-track tornado occurred on the evening of October 4, following a 27-mile track from 2 miles southeast of Boley in Okfuskee County to 3 miles southwest of Nuyaka in Okmulgee County. The tornado first touched down in Okfuskee County at 1037 PM CDT and lifted over Okmulgee County at 1108 PM CDT. (This Tornado entry covers that part of the track in Okfuskee County. See the separate Tornado entry for details on the portion in Okmulgee County.) The most significant damage to structures occurred near the communities of IXL and Haydenville, while much of the damage in the rural areas across which the tornado tracked consisted of downed/uprooted trees.In the small community of IXL, located on OK Hwy 48 north of Okemah, nearly every structure sustained at least some damage. An NWS Storm Survey revealed F2 damage at IXL, where a house and two mobile homes were destroyed. Pieces of one mobile home were found one-half mile away. A local newspaper also reported four businesses and a public building at the IXL Park were destroyed. Six houses and two more mobile homes sustained major damage, while another 21 houses and one mobile home sustained minor damage.In Haydenville, located north of Okemah on OK Hwy 56, two single-family houses and a mobile home were destroyed. Three houses, three mobile homes, and one public building (the Haydenville Fire Station) sustained major damage. Five houses and one business (the Haydenville Store) sustained minor damage. An NWS Storm Survey revealed F2 damage just southwest of Haydenville, where a mobile home was completely destroyed. Four people inside the trailer were injured, one of them critically. The tie-downs on the double-wide trailer were snapped, and the home appeared to have travelled a significant distance before disintegrating.This tornado was unusual for the fact that it covered such a large area. A survey showed that the damage path was at times 3 miles wide, lending credence to the idea that there were several smaller tornadoes circulating around the larger tornado. The larger tornado reached as wide as 8/10 of a mile.

This tornado track is the continuation of the same tornado that tracked through Okfuskee County earlier in the evening, producing F2 damage. In Okmulgee County, the tornado only produced F0 damage in the form of numerous trees downed/uprooted along its path. When all was said and done, this tornado tracked 27 miles from 2_SE Boley to 3_SW Nuyaka, and it injured four people in Okfuskee County.

A seasoned storm chaser on an aerial survey of the area reported a one-mile damage track through a forested area in the Okmulgee Wildlife Management Area just east of Nuyaka. The degree of tree damage suggested the tornado was F1 intensity. Damage in this unpopulated area consisted of numerous trees blown over.

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

10 minutes of warning. NWS TSA issued a tornado warning for this county at 03:27 UTC, 10 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 04:15 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 Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 10:57 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.

Tulsa/Lloyd Jones (RVS), 62 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

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

28 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.