Tornadoes · United States · Oklahoma · 2008
EF1 tornado, Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, December 8, 2008
This EF1 tornado ran 0.6 miles across Wagoner County on December 8, 2008, touching down at 11:36 PM CST and reaching 50 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $45,000 of property damage.
The rating scale
Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Enhanced Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.
EF065 to 85 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
EF2111 to 135 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.
EF3136 to 165 mph
Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.
EF4166 to 200 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
EF5over 200 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.
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
- EF1
- Date
- December 8, 2008
- Touchdown
- 11:36 PM CST (05:36 UTC)
- Lifted
- 11:37 PM CST (05:37 UTC)
- On the ground
- 1 minutes
- Path length
- 0.6 miles (1.0 km)
- Path width
- 50 yards (46 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $45,000
- County
- Wagoner County
- Touchdown point
- 36.097, -95.745
- Lift-off point
- 36.104, -95.740
- Record number
- 0812082336-01
What the Weather Service recorded
Severe thunderstorms occurred across northeast Oklahoma during the late evening hours of the 8th and early morning hours of the 9th.
A tornado severely damaged a mobile home and destroyed a shed.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 17:51 UTC | 00:00 UTC | Wind Advisory | TSA |
| 05:39 UTC | 06:15 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | TSA |
| 05:57 UTC | 06:45 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | TSA |
| 12:00 UTC | 22:12 UTC | Wind Advisory | TSA |
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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 00:38 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 radar
The Tulsa radar (KINX), 18 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 05:36 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.
What was reported nearby
Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Report | Where | County | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 05:33 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Broken Arrow | Tulsa, OK | ROOF OFF BUILDING EAST OF THE INTERSECTION OF KENOSHA AND ELM STREETS. |
| 05:35 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 3 Ne Broken Arrow | Wagoner, OK | POWER LINES DOWN AND EAST 47TH NORTH AND SOUTH 209TH EAST IN BROKEN ARROW. |
| 05:36 UTC | TORNADO | 5 Ne Broken Arrow | Wagoner, OK | AN EF1 TORNADO OCCURRED NEAR THE INTERSECTION OF 43RD STREET SOUTH AND 210TH STREET EAST. A MOBILE HOME AND BARN WERE DESTROYED. |
| 05:45 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 7 Ne Coweta | Wagoner, OK | HOME UNDER CONSTRUCTION WAS DAMAGED BY STRAIGHT LINE WINDS. LOCATION NEAR 71ST STREET SOUTH AND 369TH EAST AVE. |
| 05:52 UTC | HAIL 0.75 | 3 Nw Inola | Rogers, OK | |
| 06:04 UTC | TSTM WND GST 60 | 2 W Pryor | Mayes, OK | AT LEAST 60 MPH ACCORDING TO REPORT. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2008 tornado in OklahomaEvery tornado in Oklahoma since 1950Warnings in force in Oklahoma nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of December 8, 2008
2 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| December 8 | 10:22 PM CST | EF1 | Grayson, TX | 10.6 | 200 | 1 | $400,000 | |
| December 8 | 10:43 PM CST | EF2 | Grayson, TX | 3.6 | 125 | 3 | $750,000 |
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.