Tornadoes · United States · Oklahoma · 2013
EF0 tornado, Mazie to Murphy, Oklahoma, May 30, 2013
From Mazie to Murphy, this EF0 tornado ran 0.6 miles across Mayes County on May 30, 2013, touching down at 7:08 PM CDT and reaching 100 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
- May 30, 2013
- Touchdown
- 7:08 PM CDT (00:08 UTC)
- Lifted
- 7:09 PM CDT (00:09 UTC)
- On the ground
- 1 minutes
- Path length
- 0.6 miles (1.0 km)
- Path width
- 100 yards (91 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Mayes County
- Touchdown point
- 36.101, -95.367
- Lift-off point
- 36.103, -95.356
- Record number
- 1305301808-01
The damage survey
10 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS TSA, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 93 mph.
- Brief tornado reported by media storm chasers; no known damage
- Storm chasers reported a brief tornado touchdown; no known damage
- Tornado was reported by several chasers near Mazie
Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.
What the Weather Service recorded
A complex of storms that had been over portions of eastern Oklahoma during the early morning hours intensified during the late morning and afternoon resulting in isolated reports of large hail and damaging wind. A much more widespread severe weather event occurred later in the day as severe thunderstorms redeveloped across central and eastern Oklahoma during the afternoon hours ahead of a dry line over central Oklahoma and along an outflow boundary across northeastern Oklahoma. The storms produced large hail and damaging wind. A bow echo type of storm produced a brief tornado in northern Creek County during the afternoon. Two supercell thunderstorms moved along the outflow boundary from the morning thunderstorms and produced several tornadoes during the evening. One storm produced several tornadoes across Mayes County and the other produced a damaging tornado in Broken Arrow.
Storm chasers photographed a brief tornado over open country. No known damage resulted from this tornado.
Storm chasers photographed a brief tornado over open country. No known damage resulted from this tornado.
Storm chasers photographed a tornado over open country. No known damage resulted from this tornado.
This tornado snapped a couple trees and uprooted several others. Based on this damage, maximum estimated wind in the tornado was 95 to 105 mph.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
14 minutes of warning. NWS TSA issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:54 UTC, 14 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:30 UTC.
The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 18:21 UTC and running to 02:44 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 15:52 UTC | 14:31 UTC | Flash Flood Watch | TSA |
| 18:21 UTC | 02:44 UTC | Tornado Watch | TSA |
| 21:13 UTC | 22:00 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | TSA |
| 22:00 UTC | 22:45 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | TSA |
| 22:45 UTC | 23:06 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | TSA |
| 23:08 UTC | 05:00 UTC | Flood Warning | TSA |
| 23:54 UTC | 00:30 UTC | Tornado Warning | TSA |
| 00:26 UTC | 01:15 UTC | Tornado Warning | TSA |
| 01:10 UTC | 07:00 UTC | Flash Flood Warning | TSA |
| 01:12 UTC | 01:45 UTC | Tornado Warning | TSA |
| 01:33 UTC | 02:30 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | TSA |
| 01:37 UTC | 01:48 UTC | Tornado Warning | TSA |
| 02:05 UTC | 02:45 UTC | Tornado Warning | 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 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 19:50 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.
Springfield, MO (KSGF), 12:00Z
11.9 hours after it, 165 km from the path. May 31, 2013.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 805 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -160 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 171 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 614 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 59 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 37 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 368 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 350 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 5.6
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 3.7 K/km
The radar
The Tulsa radar (KINX), 20 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:07 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21:50 UTC | HAIL 0.88 | Chelsea | Rogers, OK | |
| 21:58 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | White Oak | Craig, OK | LARGE TREE DOWNED |
| 22:27 UTC | TSTM WND GST 69 | Jenks | Tulsa, OK | |
| 22:32 UTC | HAIL 0.88 | 4 Ene Jenks | Tulsa, OK | |
| 22:38 UTC | HAIL 0.88 | 6 S Tulsa | Tulsa, OK | IN SOUTH TULSA |
| 22:39 UTC | HAIL 1 | 4 N Bixby | Tulsa, OK | |
| 22:44 UTC | HAIL 0.75 | Broken Arrow | Tulsa, OK | |
| 23:54 UTC | TORNADO | Mazie | Mayes, OK | MEDIA CHASERS VIDEOED A TORNADO NEAR MAZIE. |
| 00:24 UTC | TORNADO | 2 Se Murphy | Mayes, OK | THIS TORNADO SNAPPED A COUPLE TREES AND UPROOTED SEVERAL OTHERS. BASED ON THIS DAMAGE...IT WAS RATED EF-1 ON THE ENHANCED FUJITA SCALE. |
| 01:16 UTC | HAIL 1 | Tulsa | Tulsa, OK | 31ST AND MINGO AREA |
| 01:25 UTC | HAIL 2 | N Broken Arrow | Tulsa, OK | HAIL VARYING FROM 1.25 INCHES TO 2 INCHES AT 41ST AND 145TH. |
| 01:44 UTC | TORNADO | Broken Arrow | Tulsa, OK | BETWEEN 91ST AND 101ST STREET NEAR 193RD AVENUE |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2013 tornado in OklahomaEvery tornado in Oklahoma since 1950Warnings in force in Oklahoma nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of May 30, 2013
28 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 30 | 2:08 PM CDT | EF1 | Polk, AR | 0.8 | 200 | $35,000 | ||
| May 30 | 3:00 PM CDT | EF2 | Montgomery, AR | 3.4 | 400 | 2 | $250,000 | |
| May 30 | 3:03 PM CDT | EF1 | Pike, AR | 1.5 | 300 | $10,000 | ||
| May 30 | 3:08 PM CDT | EF0 | Payne, OK | 0.3 | 100 | |||
| May 30 | 3:15 PM CDT | EF0 | Payne, OK | 0.7 | 100 | |||
| May 30 | 3:16 PM CDT | EF2 | Pike, AR | 9.0 | 300 | 5 | $145,000 | |
| May 30 | 3:26 PM CDT | EF0 | Payne, OK | 1.6 | 200 | |||
| May 30 | 3:35 PM CDT | EF2 | Polk, OK to AR | 8.6 | 800 | 5 | $295,000 | |
| May 30 | 3:35 PM CDT | EF1 | Garland, AR to OK | 8.7 | 300 | $100,000 | ||
| May 30 | 3:37 PM CDT | EF0 | Payne, OK | 0.4 | 50 | |||
| May 30 | 3:49 PM CDT | EF1 | Garland, AR | 7.2 | 300 | $500,000 | ||
| May 30 | 4:01 PM CDT | EF0 | Creek, OK | 0.1 | 50 | |||
| May 30 | 4:10 PM CDT | EF1 | Muscatine, IA | 2.4 | 100 | $25,000 | ||
| May 30 | 4:32 PM CDT | EF1 | Polk, AR | 2.4 | 200 | $75,000 | ||
| May 30 | 4:44 PM CDT | EF1 | Rock Island, IL to IA | 4.0 | 150 | $140,000 | ||
| May 30 | 5:35 PM CDT | EF0 | Whiteside, IL | 0.6 | 25 | |||
| May 30 | 5:58 PM CDT | EF0 | Garvin, OK | 0.4 | 200 | |||
| May 30 | 6:10 PM CDT | EF1 | Montgomery, AR | 3.2 | 200 | $15,000 | ||
| May 30 | 6:49 PM CDT | EF0 | Mayes, OK | 0.1 | 50 | |||
| May 30 | 6:54 PM CDT | EF0 | Mayes, OK | 0.1 | 50 | |||
| May 30 | 7:24 PM CDT | EF1 | Mayes, OK | 2.1 | 200 | |||
| May 30 | 7:46 PM CDT | EF1 | Saline, AR | 1.7 | 250 | $25,000 | ||
| May 30 | 8:40 PM CDT | EF2 | Tulsa, OK | 5.6 | 450 | $3.0 million | ||
| May 30 | 9:13 PM CDT | EF1 | Pulaski, AR | 0.2 | 150 | $150,000 | ||
| May 30 | 9:36 PM CDT | EF1 | Grant, AR | 0.4 | 200 | 1 | $25,000 | |
| May 30 | 12:20 AM CDT | EF1 | Howell, MO | 4.3 | 400 | $5,000 | ||
| May 30 | 12:25 AM CDT | EF1 | Monroe, AR | 0.4 | 100 | $25,000 | ||
| May 30 | 12:50 AM CDT | EF1 | Monroe, AR | 3.3 | 200 | 1 | $150,000 |
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.