Tornadoes · United States · Oklahoma · 2019
EF1 tornado, Shattuck, Oklahoma, April 17, 2019
This EF1 tornado ran 1.6 miles across Ellis County on April 17, 2019, touching down at 4:47 PM CDT and reaching 50 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $20,000 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 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado
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
- EF1
- Date
- April 17, 2019
- Touchdown
- 4:47 PM CDT (21:47 UTC)
- Lifted
- 4:53 PM CDT (21:53 UTC)
- On the ground
- 6 minutes
- Path length
- 1.6 miles (2.6 km)
- Path width
- 50 yards (46 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $20,000
- County
- Ellis County
- Touchdown point
- 36.314, -99.942
- Lift-off point
- 36.325, -99.967
- Record number
- 1904171547-01
The damage survey
4 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS OUN, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 88 mph.
- from Logan FB Live stream. Also a horse trailer moved west.
Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.
What the Weather Service recorded
A closed upper low, a cold front, and a dryline combined to produce numerous thunderstorms with severe weather on the 17th.
This tornado was observed by many spotters and chasers, and was one of two tornadoes observed north and northwest of Shattuck. This tornado touched down about 4.5 miles northwest of Shattuck and moved northwest. Two mobile homes were damaged, including one that suffered significant loss of roof. This tornado also damaged trees and an outbuilding.
A second tornado touched down north of Shattuck and was one of two simultaneous tornadoes observed for a time. The tornado produced only some minor tree damage near US-283 and E45 Road.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.
The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 18:33 UTC and running to 01:00 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18:33 UTC | 01:00 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Watch | OUN |
| 21:43 UTC | 22:30 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | OUN |
| 21:49 UTC | 22:30 UTC | Tornado Warning | OUN |
| 22:05 UTC | 01:00 UTC | Flood Advisory | OUN |
| 22:24 UTC | 23:00 UTC | Tornado Warning | OUN |
| 22:49 UTC | 23:30 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | OUN |
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 forecast that day
The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Enhanced Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:31 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 air that afternoon
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.
Dodge City, (KDDC), 12:00Z
9.8 hours before the tornado, 161 km from the path. April 17, 2019.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -75820 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 2546 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 34 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 20 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- -84 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 5 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 3.5 K/km
Dodge City, (KDDC), 00:00Z
2.2 hours after it, 161 km from the path. April 18, 2019.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 265 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -76 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 541 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1829 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 31 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 7 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- -27 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 43 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- -0.1
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 7.9 K/km
The radar
The Dodge City radar (KDDC), 160 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:45 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.
What was reported nearby
Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Report | Where | County | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21:43 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 5 Nw Shattuck | Ellis, OK | REPORTS OF MULTIPLE HOUSES DAMAGED AT THE INTERSECTION OF N1710 AND E0480. ROOF REPORTED HALF REMOVED FOR ONE HOUSE. POSSIBLE TORNADO DAMAGE. TIME IS RADAR ESTIMATE. |
| 21:47 UTC | TORNADO | 4 Wnw Shattuck | Ellis, OK | TWO TORNADOES OBSERVED ON THE GROUND BY BROADCAST MEDIA AND A CO-OP OBSERVER. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2019 tornado in OklahomaEvery tornado in Oklahoma since 1950Warnings in force in Oklahoma nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of April 17, 2019
8 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| April 17 | 3:39 PM CDT | Unrated | Hemphill, TX | 2.4 | 30 | |||
| April 17 | 3:54 PM CDT | EF0 | Hemphill, TX | 4.3 | 40 | |||
| April 17 | 4:29 PM CDT | Unrated | Lipscomb, TX | 1.1 | 30 | |||
| April 17 | 4:49 PM CDT | EF0 | Ellis, OK | 1.3 | 10 | $1,000 | ||
| April 17 | 5:05 PM CDT | Unrated | Carson, TX | 2.0 | 20 | |||
| April 17 | 6:38 PM CDT | Unrated | Sumner, KS | 1.1 | 30 | |||
| April 17 | 7:50 PM CDT | Unrated | Greenwood, KS | 0.1 | 30 | |||
| April 17 | 12:50 AM CDT | EF0 | Dade, MO | 2.0 | 50 | $100,000 |
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.