EF1 tornado, Putnam to Custer City, Oklahoma, June 15, 2019

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

June 15, 2019

Touchdown

8:40 PM CDT (01:40 UTC)

Lifted

8:50 PM CDT (01:50 UTC)

On the ground

10 minutes

Path length

3.1 miles (5.1 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$4,000

Counties

Dewey and Custer counties

Touchdown point

35.833, -98.932

Lift-off point

35.810, -98.974

Record number

1906151940-01

44 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 122 mph.

• a few trees damaged. signs blown down.
• south to corner. southern. most.
• adjacent home sheltered and ok
• Jim Schwartz. roof blown 100-150 yards south. boat blown across east.

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

A dryline and a cold front combined to produce numerous severe thunderstorms on the 15th.

Storm spotters and chasers observed a tornado develop southeast of Putman. A few tree branches and tree limbs were broken as the tornado moved west and southwest. The tornado crossed into Custer County about a mile west of US-183 where a wooden cross member was broken on a power pole at the county line.

This tornado crossed into Custer County from Dewey County breaking a wooden cross member on a power pole on the county line. The tornado moved south less than one quarter of a mile before dissipating.

A tornado developed along US Highway 183 near County Road E0860 Road and moved south along US-183. The roof of one house was removed and more than a dozen power poles were downed between E0870 Road and E0880 Road. The tornado continued south and then turned generally southeast dissipating near E0910 Road about 1.25 miles east of US-183. The RaXPol mobile research radar observed the last portion of the tornado life cycle and preliminary investigations noted that the tornadic circulation weakened at 9:13:55 pm CDT.

The RaXPol mobile research radar observed a second tornado from 9:16:06 to 9:17:20 pm CDT northwest of where the previous tornado had dissipated. This radar signature likely corresponds to tree damage noted along County Roads E0880 and N2250 to the west of US-183.

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.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 20:43 UTC and running to 02:02 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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 01:46 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.

The Vance AFB radar (KVNX), 126 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:40 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

28 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.