EF3 El Reno tornado, Oklahoma, May 31, 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 31, 2013

Touchdown

6:03 PM CDT (23:03 UTC)

Lifted

6:44 PM CDT (23:44 UTC)

On the ground

41 minutes

Path length

16.2 miles (26.1 km)

Path width

4,576 yards (4184 m)

Deaths

8

Injuries

26

Property damage

$300,000

County

Canadian County

Touchdown point

35.485, -98.096

Lift-off point

35.502, -97.848

Record number

1305311703-01

422 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS OUN, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF3. The highest wind the damage implies is 156 mph.

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

A tornado outbreak occurred during the late afternoon and early evening hours of the 31st. A stalled front and deeply mixed dryline served as a focus for thunderstorm development. The front/dryline triple point was where the most intense supercells initiated. These storms traveled eastward, eventually impacting the Oklahoma City metropolitan area. Several tornadoes occurred, including the El Reno tornado, which unfortunately claimed several lives. In addition to the tornado, very large hail and heavy rains led to flash flooding in Oklahoma City. This flash flood event ranked as one of the worst in Oklahoma City history in terms of fatalities and damages to property. The event lasted well into the overnight hours.

On 31 May, an intense, long-track tornado formed southwest of El Reno. This exceptionally wide tornado took a complex path, rapidly changing in both speed and direction. The tornado spared El Reno and its airport from a direct hit, tracking just south of those locations. The tornado damaged numerous homes along with a few businesses near El Reno. Additionally, intense sub-vortices destroyed crops in numerous fields in the area.||The tornado developed at 6:03 p.m. just northeast of the intersection of Heaston and Reuter roads. Initially, the tornado moved to the southeast at 20 to 25 mph. At 6:09 p.m., the tornado turned to the east, just south of Reno Road between Heaston and Brandley roads. The tornado continued to expand in size just southwest of the El Reno Municipal Air Park, where its speed increased to 30 to 40 mph. As the tornado passed just south of the airport, two satellite tornadoes formed briefly on the west side of the tornado.||At 6:19 p.m. the tornado crossed Highway 81 near Reno Road as it continued to expand in size. There, the tornado abruptly turned to the north, while also accelerating to greater than 50 mph. From 6:24 to 6:26 p.m., the tornado reached its maximum in size and intensity near the intersection of Radio and Reuter roads. The tornado, still very large, slowed down as it approached I-40. From 6:27 to 6:35 the tornado made a loop just north of the interstate while decelerating to less than 10 mph. After 6:35, the tornado moved east once again, and dissipated at 6:42 p.m. near the intersection of I-40 and Banner Road.| |Eight people were killed in the tornado, all in vehicles. This included three severe storm researchers who were killed east of US-81 as the tornado overtook their position. Additionally, several other people were killed while attempting to escape the tornado near Highway 81. Finally, two people were killed along I-40 while waiting for the storm to pass.||The monetary damages were estimated. This tornado was well sampled by two separate mobile research radar teams ��� the University of Oklahoma RaXPol radar, and the Center for Severe Weather Research���s Doppler on Wheels. Both radars captured high temporal and spatial resolution data relatively close to the large tornado. Both radars measured winds in the tornado of more than 200 mph. The RaXPol radar data shows winds of at least 295 mph very close to the surface. These intense winds were present in very small sub-vortices within the larger tornado circulation. An analysis of the high resolution radar data combined with the results of the ground damage survey indicates that none of these intense sub-vortices impacted any structures in rural Canadian County. So despite the measured wind speeds, surveyors could not find any damage that would support a rating higher than EF3 based solely on the damage indicators used with the EF scale. ||The maximum tornado width was 2.6 miles. However, the damaging wind swath was much larger, as non-tornadic downdraft winds extended for at least a mile south of the tornado. Given the difficulty of separating this damage from tornadic damage, the OU RaXPol radar was used to help determine the width.

The storm damage survey and Doppler on Wheels mobile radar detected a long-lived anticyclonic tornado southwest of Yukon. Some structural damage was noted along with damage to trees. Damages estimated.

The deaths

8 direct deaths are recorded for this tornado, each with what Storm Data knows of it.

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

27 minutes of warning. NWS OUN issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:36 UTC, 27 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:27 UTC and running to 02:46 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 20:02 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), 65 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:00 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

35 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.