EF1 tornado, Albion, Oklahoma, May 10, 2008

1. EF065 to 85 mph

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

2. EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado

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

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. EF4166 to 200 mph

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

6. 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.

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

EF1

Date

May 10, 2008

Touchdown

6:35 PM CDT (23:35 UTC)

Path length

0.5 miles (0.8 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Pushmataha County

Touchdown point

34.619, -95.038

Lift-off point

34.619, -95.038

Record number

0805101735-01

Elevated severe thunderstorms containing large hail developed north of a warm front that was moving slowly northward across eastern Oklahoma and west central Arkansas during the morning and early afternoon of the 10th. ||Another round of severe thunderstorms developed late in the afternoon as a dry line approached the area from the west. Extreme instability and strong vertical wind shear resulted in the development of long-lived supercell thunderstorms that moved across eastern Oklahoma and northwestern Arkansas during the late afternoon and evening. Several of these supercells became tornadic and a few produced long-lived damaging tornadoes. ||One such supercell developed and moved along the Oklahoma-Kansas border and then into southwestern Missouri. This storm produced a tornado in northeastern Craig County OK that remained on the ground for 29 miles in Oklahoma, continued for about 31 miles in Newton County MO, and finally dissipated about 15 miles into Barry County MO. It produced EF-4 damage in several locations, including Picher, a small town in north-central Ottawa County OK. Twenty-one fatalities, over 350 injuries, and an estimated $60 million in property damage resulted from this tornado in Oklahoma and Missouri. Six of the fatalities and about 150 injuries occurred in Picher OK.||Other strong tornadoes developed and moved across portions of Pittsburg and Latimer Counties. A EF-2 tornado was on the ground for about eight miles west of McAlester, damaging numerous homes in its path. Another EF-2 tornado developed southwest of Hartshorne in Pittsburg County and moved 19 miles before dissipating just east of Yanush in Latimer County. Four injuries resulted from that tornado and numerous homes were severely damaged or destroyed.

A tornado snapped or uprooted several trees along Indian Highway.

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

39 minutes of warning. NWS TSA issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:56 UTC, 39 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 18:38 UTC and running to 01:29 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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.15 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 20:09 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), 97 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:34 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.

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

The live radar over the trackEvery 2008 tornado in OklahomaEvery tornado in Oklahoma since 1950Warnings in force in Oklahoma nowThe forecast where you are

36 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.