EF2 tornado, Fargo to Selman, Oklahoma, November 16, 2015

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

November 16, 2015

Touchdown

9:18 PM CST (03:18 UTC)

Lifted

9:51 PM CST (03:51 UTC)

On the ground

33 minutes

Path length

27.2 miles (43.8 km)

Path width

400 yards (366 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$7,000

Counties

Harper and Ellis counties

Touchdown point

36.522, -99.729

Lift-off point

36.842, -99.450

Record number

1511162118-01

2 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS DDC, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 88 mph.

• Tornado crossed into Comanche county from Oklahoma.

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

A line of storms formed along an eastward moving front overnight on the 16th and continued into the morning of the 17th. Several of these storms produced severe winds, and a few produced tornadoes.

The first damage known to occur with this tornado was damage to trees near EW 34 Road and NS 184 Road. A home received damage, sheds were destroyed, and trees were snapped between NS 186 and NS 187 on EW 31 Road. This tornado moved into Harper County west of Fort Supply.

This tornado moved from Ellis County into Harper County to the west of Fort Supply. Four electrical transmission poles were broken as well as several trees 4 miles west of Fort Supply. Outbuildings were heavily damaged north of Fort Supply as the tornado continued northeast, and more power poles were broken east of Buffalo near the end of the tornado's path.

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

3 minutes of warning. NWS OUN issued a tornado warning for this county at 03:15 UTC, 3 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 03:32 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 02:18 UTC and running to 06:09 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 Enhanced 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 01:06 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.

West Woodward (WWR), 28 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Dodge City radar (KDDC), 125 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 03:15 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 2015 tornado in OklahomaEvery tornado in Oklahoma since 1950Warnings in force in Oklahoma nowThe forecast where you are

38 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.