Tornadoes · United States · Oklahoma · 2018
EF0 tornado, Tishomingo, Oklahoma, November 30, 2018
This EF0 tornado ran 0.9 miles across Johnston County on November 30, 2018, touching down at 8:58 PM CST and reaching 60 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $6,000 of property damage.
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
- November 30, 2018
- Touchdown
- 8:58 PM CST (02:58 UTC)
- Lifted
- 8:59 PM CST (02:59 UTC)
- On the ground
- 1 minutes
- Path length
- 0.9 miles (1.4 km)
- Path width
- 60 yards (55 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $6,000
- County
- Johnston County
- Touchdown point
- 34.228, -96.681
- Lift-off point
- 34.239, -96.675
- Record number
- 1811302058-01
What the Weather Service recorded
A line of strong to severe thunderstorms moved across Oklahoma during the evening of the 30th associated with a strong cold front.
A small tornado from a quasi-linear convective system moved through portions of Tishomingo. It moved north, then northeast from the southern part of town to northeast of downtown. There were areas of roof and tree damage along the path, and some minor damage at Tishomingo Elementary School.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
What forecasters said that day
The local office's own words before the tornado touched down, as it sent them, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service text.
Hazardous weather outlook, Nov 30, 6:13 PM CST, 2 hours 45 minutes before
Hazardous Weather Outlook...UPDATED National Weather Service Norman OK 613 PM CST Fri Nov 30 2018 OKZ004>048-050>052-TXZ083>090-020015- Harper-Woods-Alfalfa-Grant-Kay-Ellis-Woodward-Major-Garfield- Noble-Roger Mills-Dewey-Custer-Blaine-Kingfisher-Logan-Payne- Beckham-Washita-Caddo-Canadian-Oklahoma-Lincoln-Grady-McClain- Cleveland-Pottawatomie-Seminole-Hughes-Harmon-Greer-Kiowa-Jackson- Tillman-Comanche-Stephens-Garvin-Murray-Pontotoc-Coal-Cotton- Jefferson-Carter-Johnston-Atoka-Love-Marshall-Bryan-Hardeman- Foard-Wilbarger-Wichita-Knox-Baylor-Archer-Clay- 613 PM CST Fri Nov 30 2018 This hazardous weather outlook is for portions of northern... western...central...and southern Oklahoma...and western north Texas. .DAY ONE...Through Tonight... .Thunderstorms... There is a Slight Risk of severe thunderstorms this evening across portions of Oklahoma and north Texas. Location... The Slight Risk area extends east of a line from Freedom to Clinton to Cache and Randlett Oklahoma to Henrietta Texas. A Marginal Risk covers the area between the Slight Risk area and a line from Laverne to Erick Oklahoma to Electra, Texas. Timing... The main risk will be through midnight. Impacts... Hail up to the size of baseballs, wind gusts 60 to 80 mph, and tornadoes will be possible. Discussion... Scattered thunderstorms will continue to move across much of the eastern two-thirds of Oklahoma and portions of western north Texas this evening. Instability will be marginal for severe storms, but wind fields will be very supportive. This will result in low- topped supercell storms during the evening hours. The storms will move quickly to the east or northeast. .SPOTTER AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT STATEMENT... Storm spotter groups and emergency management personnel across these risk areas should prepare for severe weather operations through the evening hours. .Fog... Areas of dense fog will continue this evening across northwestern Oklahoma. .DAYS TWO THROUGH SEVEN...Saturday through Thursday... .Fire weather... Warm, dry, breezy conditions will result in an elevated risk of wildfires Saturday afternoon across western Oklahoma and adjacent parts of Texas. .Winter weather... Light snow will be possible late Sunday night into early Monday morning...and again Thursday night, mainly across central and northern Oklahoma. Get graphics and more details at weather.gov/norman...and follow our weather forecast office on Twitter and Facebook.
In the hours before
Local storm report, Nov 30, 8:18 PM CST, 40 minutes before
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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.
Norman, OK (KOUN), 00:00Z
3.0 hours before the tornado, 128 km from the path. December 1, 2018.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 946 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -21 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 1252 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 798 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 53 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 27 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 230 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 244 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 1.1
- Supercell composite
- 5.7
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 6.3 K/km
The surface observations
Ardmore Municipal (ADM), 32 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (kt) | Pressure (mb) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 00:00 UTC |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
The radar
The Norman radar (KTLX), 134 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 02:58 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.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2018 tornado in OklahomaEvery tornado in Oklahoma since 1950Warnings in force in Oklahoma nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of November 30, 2018
6 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| November 30 | 9:28 PM CST | EF1 | Muskogee, OK | 7.1 | 400 | $45,000 | ||
| November 30 | 9:36 PM CST | EF0 | Osage, OK | 1.5 | 200 | $15,000 | ||
| November 30 | 9:43 PM CST | EF2 | Sequoyah, OK | 47.0 | 1,100 | 5 | $2.0 million | |
| November 30 | 11:09 PM CST | EF2 | Crawford, AR | 5.6 | 600 | 2 | $2.5 million | |
| November 30 | 11:17 PM CST | EF1 | Crawford, AR | 8.7 | 700 | $75,000 | ||
| November 30 | 11:50 PM CST | EF0 | Logan, AR | 4.3 | 100 | $25,000 |
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.