EF3 tornado, Luther to Tryon, Oklahoma, May 19, 2013

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 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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF3

Date

May 19, 2013

Touchdown

4:41 PM CDT (21:41 UTC)

Lifted

5:24 PM CDT (22:24 UTC)

On the ground

43 minutes

Path length

20.8 miles (33.5 km)

Path width

1,200 yards (1097 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

4

Counties

Oklahoma, Lincoln and Logan counties

Touchdown point

35.693, -97.232

Lift-off point

35.847, -96.920

Record number

1305191541-01

178 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS ABR and NWS OUN, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF3. The highest wind the damage implies is 165 mph.

• north side of path. centerline about 100' south.
• north side of path. one short tree.
• 18" tree uprooted. second 12" trunk snapped in half
• first upstream indication of tornado...start of path.

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

A moist and very unstable airmass was in place over the eastern two thirds of Oklahoma, to the east of a dryline. Additionally, strong wind shear was present as a mid-level jet streak carved into the southern Plains. Several supercells developed along the dryline during the mid and late afternoon hours, producing large hail. Two supercells in central Oklahoma also produced tornadoes, including a few significant, damaging tornadoes.

A tornado touched down just south of Triple XXX Road and Coffee Creek Road to the northwest of Luther and began to move east-northeast. The tornado began producing EF2 damage soon after crossing Luther Road where an outbuilding was destroyed. At least two mobile homes were destroyed as the tornado continued to the east-northeast. The tornado crossed Waterloo Road and moved into Logan County.

Tornado continued tracking ENE, producing tree damage as it clipped the extreme southeast corner of Logan County before moving into Lincoln County.

The large tornado continued to move northeast from Logan County into Lincoln County. The tornado passed just southeast of Fallis and then clipped the southeastern portion of Carney. It produced EF3 damage to a number of homes from just south of Carney into the southeast portion of the town. The tornado finally dissipated about 3 miles southeast of Tryon. Motions observed visually in this tornado suggest that the tornado was likely stronger then EF3 in western Lincoln County, but no damage indicators were available that would have supplied a rating higher than EF3 in this area.

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

30 minutes of warning. NWS OUN issued a tornado warning for this county at 21:11 UTC, 30 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 21:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 19:15 UTC and running to 02:48 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 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 19:40 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 Norman radar (KTLX), 52 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:40 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 2013 tornado in OklahomaEvery tornado in Oklahoma since 1950Warnings in force in Oklahoma nowThe forecast where you are

26 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.