Tornadoes · United States · Oklahoma · 2013

EF0 tornado, Putnam, Oklahoma, April 26, 2013

Name: EF0 tornado, Putnam, Oklahoma, April 26, 2013
Start: 2013-04-26T23:31:00.000Z
End: 2013-04-26T23:33:00.000Z
Location: Putnam, Oklahoma

This EF0 tornado ran 0.2 miles across Dewey County on April 26, 2013, touching down at 6:31 PM CDT and reaching 50 yards wide. It killed nobody.

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 mphthis tornado
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mph
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: EF0
Date: April 26, 2013
Touchdown: 6:31 PM CDT (23:31 UTC)
Lifted: 6:33 PM CDT (23:33 UTC)
On the ground: 2 minutes
Path length: 0.2 miles (0.3 km)
Path width: 50 yards (46 m)
Deaths: 0
Injuries: 0
County: Dewey County
Touchdown point: 35.950, -98.990
Lift-off point: 35.949, -98.987
Record number: 1304261731-01

What the Weather Service recorded

A strong surface low developed over the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles. During the afternoon, a weak wave of low pressure aloft acted to drive a warm front southward as a cold front. Scattered supercells developed along the front, traveling from northwest Oklahoma southeastward into portions of central and south central Oklahoma. Very large hail and significant wind damage accompanied the storms, which lingered well into the overnight hours.

A very brief tornado was observed by a storm chaser over open country. No damage occurred.

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.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 20:38 UTC and running to 04:00 UTC.

Issued (UTC)	Expired	Product	Office
20:38 UTC	04:00 UTC	Severe Thunderstorm Watch	OUN
22:21 UTC	23:00 UTC	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	OUN
22:50 UTC	23:30 UTC	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	OUN
23:16 UTC	00:00 UTC	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	OUN
23:53 UTC	00:30 UTC	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	OUN

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 Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 20:00 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 air that afternoon

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.

Lamont, OK (KLMN), 12:00Z

11.5 hours before the tornado, 154 km from the path. April 26, 2013.

Skew-T log-p

Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.

Hodograph

The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.

Mixed-layer CAPE: 0 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN: -50124 J/kg
Surface CAPE: 0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL: 1357 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear: 57 kt
0-1 km bulk shear: 38 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity: 336 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity: 331 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter: 0.0
Supercell composite: -0.1
0-3 km lapse rate: 4.0 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Lamont, OK (KLMN), 00:00Z

0.5 hours after it, 154 km from the path. April 27, 2013.

Skew-T log-p

Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.

Hodograph

Mixed-layer CAPE: 0 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN: 0 J/kg
Surface CAPE: 2 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL: 468 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear: 64 kt
0-1 km bulk shear: 18 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity: 134 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity: 154 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter: 0.0
Supercell composite: 0.0
0-3 km lapse rate: 3.5 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Clinton (CLK), 46 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)	Temp (°F)	Dew point (°F)	Wind	Gust (kt)	Pressure (mb)	Weather
21:35 UTC	69.8	50	140° 8 kt		1014.9
21:55 UTC	71.6	51.8	130° 13 kt		1014.6
22:15 UTC	71.6	51.8	120° 10 kt	14	1014.2
22:35 UTC	71.6	51.8	130° 11 kt	16	1013.9
22:55 UTC	71.6	51.8	130° 15 kt	19	1013.5
23:15 UTC	71.6	53.6	130° 15 kt		1012.5
23:35 UTC	69.8	53.6	130° 20 kt		1012.5
23:55 UTC	69.8	53.6	130° 20 kt	27	1011.9
00:35 UTC	66.2	55.4	20° 10 kt		1014.6
00:55 UTC	59	50	40° 16 kt	20	1014.9	-DZ
01:15 UTC	55.4	50	50° 13 kt	21	1015.6	RA

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

The radar

The Vance AFB radar (KVNX), 117 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:29 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
23:05 UTC	TSTM WND GST 64	4 Wnw Camargo	Dewey, OK
23:31 UTC	TORNADO	6 S Taloga	Dewey, OK	A BRIEF TORNADO WAS OBSERVED.
23:40 UTC	TSTM WND GST 60	2 S Putnam	Dewey, OK
00:09 UTC	HAIL 1	Oakwood	Dewey, OK
00:10 UTC	TSTM WND GST 60	9 W Thomas	Custer, OK	ALSO RECEIVED NICKEL SIZE HAIL
00:43 UTC	HAIL 1	Greenfield	Blaine, OK

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

This ground now

The live radar over the track Every 2013 tornado in Oklahoma Every tornado in Oklahoma since 1950 Warnings in force in Oklahoma now The forecast where you are

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.