EF2 tornado, La Barge to Wagoner Airstrip, Oklahoma, May 24, 2011

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 mph

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

3. EF2111 to 135 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. 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

EF2

Date

May 24, 2011

Touchdown

9:13 PM CDT (02:13 UTC)

Lifted

9:20 PM CDT (02:20 UTC)

On the ground

7 minutes

Path length

4.4 miles (7.1 km)

Path width

450 yards (411 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$400,000

County

Wagoner County

Touchdown point

35.942, -95.375

Lift-off point

35.953, -95.298

Record number

1105242013-01

3 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS TSA, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 115 mph.

• The roof of a wood-framed garage was removed.
• wood framed car port nailed to frame was destroyed
• Numerous trees snapped or uprooted in this area, too.

Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.

Severe thunderstorms developed along a dry line over central Oklahoma during the afternoon hours. Very unstable air and strong wind shear east of the dry line supported supercell thunderstorm structures, which persisted as the storms moved into eastern Oklahoma during the evening hours. These severe storms produced tornadoes, large hail to golfball size, and very strong damaging downburst wind across much of eastern Oklahoma.

A tornado developed and moved across the southeastern portion of the City of Wagoner where it damaged the roofs of about a dozen homes, destroyed a carport, and snapped trees. The tornado moved across portions of Fort Gibson WMA and then across Long Bay of Fort Gibson Lake before impacting the Taylor Ferry and Long Bay Recreational Areas. In those areas, numerous campers and trailers were severely damaged or destroyed, several mobile homes were destroyed, several permanent homes were damaged, and numerous large trees were snapped or uprooted. Maximum estimated wind in the tornado based on this damage was about 115 mph. Several storm chasers, storm spotters, and citizens witnessed this tornado.

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

38 minutes of warning. NWS TSA issued a tornado warning for this county at 01:35 UTC, 38 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 02:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 22:52 UTC and running to 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 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 01:05 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.

Tahlequah Municipal (TQH), 30 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Tulsa radar (KINX), 33 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 02:12 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 2011 tornado in OklahomaEvery tornado in Oklahoma since 1950Warnings in force in Oklahoma nowThe forecast where you are

47 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.