EF0 tornado, Broken Arrow to Oneta, Oklahoma, December 28, 2019

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

   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 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

EF0

Date

December 28, 2019

Touchdown

3:30 PM CST (21:30 UTC)

Lifted

3:32 PM CST (21:32 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

1.2 miles (1.9 km)

Path width

160 yards (146 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$42,000

Counties

Tulsa and Wagoner counties

Touchdown point

36.012, -95.765

Lift-off point

36.023, -95.747

Record number

1912281530-01

11 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS TSA, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 85 mph.

• Most of shingles blown off roof were on east side of the roof
• Uplifted section of roof and porch were on east side of house
• Several wooden power poles leaning from here south

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

Broken lines of thunderstorms developed and moved through eastern Oklahoma during the afternoon and early evening of the 28th, as a cold front and strong upper level storm system approached the Southern Plains from the west. Although instability was weak, very strong low level wind shear was more than enough to support the development of low level rotation in a couple of the stronger convective lines as they moved through eastern Oklahoma. One such line produced a weak tornado in Broken Arrow. Other strong storms produced damaging wind.

This is the first segment of a two-segment tornado. This tornado developed over an open area west of County Line Road and south of E 101st Street S. It moved northeast and crossed the Wagoner County Line, where it pushed over power poles. Based on this damage, maximum estimated wind in this segment of the tornado was 80 to 85 mph.

This is the second segment of a two-segment tornado. This tornado crossed into Wagoner County where a portion of the roof of a home was uplifted, and many shingles were removed from the roof of another nearby home. Large tree limbs were snapped from the county line, across neighborhoods, on the south side of the Jack Graves Scout Reservation, to where it dissipated north of the NSU Broken Arrow campus. Based on this damage, maximum estimated wind in this segment of the tornado was 80 to 85 mph.

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

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.

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 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 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.

Tulsa/Lloyd Jones (RVS), 21 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Tulsa radar (KINX), 25 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.

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 2019 tornado in OklahomaEvery tornado in Oklahoma since 1950Warnings in force in Oklahoma nowThe forecast where you are

2 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.