EF1 tornado, Bromide to Stringtown, Oklahoma, May 9, 2016

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 mphthis tornado

   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 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

EF1

Date

May 9, 2016

Touchdown

5:46 PM CDT (22:46 UTC)

Lifted

6:19 PM CDT (23:19 UTC)

On the ground

33 minutes

Path length

12.9 miles (20.8 km)

Path width

900 yards (823 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$40,000

Counties

Coal and Atoka counties

Touchdown point

34.408, -96.341

Lift-off point

34.449, -96.128

Record number

1605091646-01

49 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS OUN, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 170 mph.

• roof removed from one story radio station
• small tower with larger tower intact
• broken limbs from dead trees
• trees down, tbars bent, telephone poles down, tornado center

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

With the help of an upper low, storms fired along the dryline in central Oklahoma on the 9th, with some of them becoming severe.

The centerline of the tornado crossed into Coal County from Johnston County within the town of Bromide. Although from about 1.25 miles west of Bromide to where it dissipated just east of Bromide, the tornado moved down the Johnston-Coal county line affecting both counties. Only light tree damage was observed in and near Bromide.

A tornado develop approximately 12 miles west-northwest of Atoka, near Blue Ribbon Road and less than one mile south of the Coal County line. An outbuilding was destroyed along Blue Ribbon Road. Although the center of circulation remained on the Atoka County side of the county line until moving into Coal County one-third of a mile west of US-75, the north side of the tornado expanded into Coal County before reaching NS376 Road as the tornado continue to produce tree damage across both counties.

A storm chaser observed a brief tornado south of the larger Atoka/Coal County tornado. This tornado may have been anticyclonic. No damage is known to have occurred with this tornado.

Although the center line of this tornado did not move into Coal County from Atoka County until one-third of a mile west of US-75, the north edge of the tornado had expanded into Coal County producing tree damage 7 miles farther west, to the west of NS-376 Road. As the tornado approached US-75, the tornado produced slight roof damage to a house on Mockingbird Lane just north of the county line. The tornado damaged a radio station building at US-75 as the center line crossed into Coal County and began moving northeast. The tornado continued moving northeast through a rural area of southeastern Coal County before turning back to the east and moving into Atoka County near EW-177 Road.

The tornado moved back into Atoka County crossing Division Street near EW-177 Road after moving across southeastern Coal County. More tree damage was observed along Division Street and North Coal Creek Road before the tornado dissipated just east of North Coal Creek Road.

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

5 minutes of warning. NWS OUN issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:41 UTC, 5 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 19:36 UTC and running to 00:20 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. The outlook in force was issued at 20:00 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.

Atoka Municipal Airport (AQR), 8 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Norman radar (KTLX), 138 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:42 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 2016 tornado in OklahomaEvery tornado in Oklahoma since 1950Warnings in force in Oklahoma nowThe forecast where you are

27 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.