Tornadoes · United States · Oklahoma · 2019
EF0 tornado, Lehigh, Oklahoma, December 28, 2019
This EF0 tornado ran 0.2 miles across Coal County on December 28, 2019, touching down at 3:28 PM CST and reaching 20 yards wide. It killed nobody.
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
- December 28, 2019
- Touchdown
- 3:28 PM CST (21:28 UTC)
- Path length
- 0.2 miles (0.3 km)
- Path width
- 20 yards (18 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Crop damage
- $10,000
- County
- Coal County
- Touchdown point
- 34.470, -96.246
- Lift-off point
- 34.470, -96.246
- Record number
- 1912281528-01
What the Weather Service recorded
A line of thunderstorms produced an isolated tornado west of Lehigh.
A brief tornado developed with an otherwise non-severe line of thunderstorms west of Lehigh. This tornado heavily damaged two buildings on a farm with some of the debris blown to the northwest at right angles to the storm motion.
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.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 21:30 UTC | 22:00 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.02 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 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.
Norman, OK (KOUN), 12:00Z
9.5 hours before the tornado, 134 km from the path. December 28, 2019.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 16 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -95 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 28 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 677 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 58 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 37 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 359 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 366 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.2 K/km
Norman, OK (KOUN), 00:00Z
2.5 hours after it, 134 km from the path. December 29, 2019.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 16 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -166 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 243 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1546 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 75 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 27 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- -104 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- -230 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- -0.0
- Supercell composite
- -0.2
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 6.9 K/km
The surface observations
Atoka Municipal Airport (AQR), 12 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (kt) | Pressure (mb) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19:30 UTC | 60.8 | 60.8 | 170° 9 kt | 1005.1 | RA | |
| 19:55 UTC | 59 | 59 | 190° 6 kt | 1004.4 | +RA | |
| 20:15 UTC | 59 | 59 | 180° 10 kt | 14 | 1004.1 | +RA |
| 20:35 UTC | 59 | 59 | 170° 8 kt | 1003.7 | VCTS | |
| 20:55 UTC | 59 | 59 | 160° 8 kt | 16 | 1003 | |
| 21:15 UTC | 59 | 59 | 150° 6 kt | 1002.7 | -RA | |
| 21:35 UTC | 59 | 59 | 240° 23 kt | 30 | 1004.7 | VCTSRA |
| 21:55 UTC | 55.4 | 55.4 | 230° 8 kt | 1004.1 | VCTSRA | |
| 22:15 UTC | 53.6 | 53.6 | 230° 8 kt | 20 | 1004.4 | RA |
| 22:35 UTC | 53.6 | 53.6 | 220° 7 kt | 1004.1 | RA | |
| 22:55 UTC | 53.6 | 53.6 | 230° 5 kt | 1004.4 | VCTSRA | |
| 23:15 UTC | 53.6 | 53.6 | 230° 8 kt | 1005.4 | RA |
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 21:30 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 2019 tornado in OklahomaEvery tornado in Oklahoma since 1950Warnings in force in Oklahoma nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of December 28, 2019
2 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| December 28 | 3:30 PM CST | EF0 | Tulsa, OK | 1.2 | 160 | $42,000 | ||
| December 28 | 7:03 PM CST | EF0 | Polk, MO | 1.4 | 75 | $55,000 |
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.