EF2 tornado, Plunkettville to Wickes, Oklahoma, May 30, 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 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 30, 2013

Touchdown

3:35 PM CDT (20:35 UTC)

Lifted

3:55 PM CDT (20:55 UTC)

On the ground

20 minutes

Path length

8.6 miles (13.8 km)

Path width

800 yards (732 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

5

Property damage

$295,000

Counties

Polk and McCurtain counties

Touchdown point

34.365, -94.499

Lift-off point

34.447, -94.388

Record number

1305301435-01

62 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS LZK and NWS SHV, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 125 mph.

• Numerous large trees down, tree crushed old mobile home.
• Numerous large trees down.
• Tree fell into house, barn destroyed.
• Trees on mobile home. Car crushed by trees.

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

A broad upper trough ejected out of the Great Basin and moved into the Central Plains. Broad southwest flow aloft developed across the Southern Plains into the Lower Mississippi Valley. A disturbance rotated around the trough and provided the lift needed for scattered thunderstorms across the Middle Red River Valley. Instability was extreme across the region and low level shear values were supportive of rotating thunderstorms during the early afternoon hours.

The approach of low pressure aloft triggered numerous thunderstorms from the 30th into the early morning hours of the 31st. Tornadoes, severe thunderstorms, and flash flooding occurred. The flooding killed six people, and the tornadoes killed one. The same weather system caused severe storms and flash flooding again on June 1st. For the 24-hour period ending at 7 AM on the 31st, a band of very heavy rain fell from Waldron and Mena to Conway and Little Rock and then on to Newport and Augusta. Within this band, rainfall amounts of 3 to 5 inches were common, and isolated totals exceeded 7 inches. Also on the evening of the 30th, 3.09 inches of rain fell in one hour at Little Rock, breaking the all-time record for the greatest amount of rain in one hour in the city. The previous record was 3.00 inches on May 26, 1955. President Barack Obama declared federal disasters in these counties: Cleburne, Independence, Montgomery, Polk, Scott, Searcy, Stone, Van Buren, and Woodruff.

A supercell thunderstorm moved through McCurtain county on the afternoon of May 30th. The storm produced an EF1 tornado about 6 miles southeast of Watson, Oklahoma. The tornado mainly uprooted and snapped trees. A tree fell on a home in this rural community, causing damage to the roof. The tornado then crossed over the state line into Arkansas about 3 miles southwest of Cove, Arkansas. Please see the report from WFO Little Rock on the continuation of this tornado.

This tornado exited McCurtain County, Oklahoma, 1.4 miles southeast of Plunkettville and entered Polk County, Arkansas, 3 miles southwest of Cove. In Arkansas, several mobile homes were damaged, including one that was crushed by a large tree and another that rolled over onto two vehicles. Trees were blown down onto a house, and a barn was destroyed. Several houses suffered roof damage. Numerous large trees, power lines, and power poles were blown down. Two cars were crushed by falling trees. Five people were injured.

An EF1 tornado caused a mobile home and a horse trailer to be crushed by falling trees. Shingles were blown off a house. The metal roof was blown off a shed. Numerous trees were uprooted or snapped off.

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

28 minutes of warning. NWS SHV issued a tornado warning for this county at 20:07 UTC, 28 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 20:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 18:25 UTC and running to 02:00 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 Slight 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 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), 99 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:34 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 2013 tornado in OklahomaEvery tornado in Oklahoma since 1950Warnings in force in Oklahoma nowThe forecast where you are

28 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.