EF2 tornado, Jay to Ginger Blue, Oklahoma, May 22, 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 mph

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. EF2111 to 135 mphthis tornado

   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

EF2

Date

May 22, 2019

Touchdown

9:34 PM CDT (02:34 UTC)

Lifted

10:08 PM CDT (03:08 UTC)

On the ground

34 minutes

Path length

16.6 miles (26.7 km)

Path width

1,100 yards (1006 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$500,000

Counties

Delaware and McDonald counties

Touchdown point

36.431, -94.814

Lift-off point

36.607, -94.616

Record number

1905222034-01

47 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS TSA, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 120 mph.

• major tree damage this area as well
• multiple homes damaged in this area

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

Severe thunderstorms developed over northeastern Oklahoma during the afternoon hours of the 22nd, ahead of a cold front that moved into the area. Very strong instability and wind shear in the air mass ahead of the cold front allowed for the development of supercell thunderstorms, which affected the area through late evening. These supercells produced twenty-one documented tornadoes, including a significant tornado, large hail up to baseball size, damaging wind gusts, and locally heavy rainfall that resulted in flash flooding across northeastern Oklahoma.

Multiple rounds of storms producing heavy rainfall, severe winds, hail and tornadoes moved across the Missouri Ozarks from May 20th and into the early morning hours of May 24th as upper level disturbances interacted with a slow moving but powerful storm system over the central Plains. Tornadoes occurred with each round, with the strongest and most numerous tornadoes occurring during the late afternoon and evening of the 22nd. On the anniversary of the Joplin Tornado off 2011, another tornado, rated EF-3 struck the north side of Joplin. This storm system eventually produced subsequent tornadoes in Golden City, Eldon and Jefferson City. Unfortunately there were three fatalities as a result of the tornado in Golden City. The cumulative rainfall caused areas of flash flooding with some flooding lingering across the region. Some locations in southeastern Kansas and southwestern Missouri reported in excess of 8 inches of rainfall over the 72 hour period. .

This is the first segment of a two-segment tornado. The tornado developed on the west side of Jay and moved northeast severely damaging two homes and snapping numerous trees and power poles near Highway 59. The tornado continued northeast, destroying two mobile homes and snapping trees and power poles near the intersection of the E 380 Road and S 630 Road. It then moved northeast across heavily wooded terrain, crossed the E 340 Road, and then the E 290 Road. Trees were uprooted, large tree limbs were snapped, power poles were blown down, and outbuildings were damaged by the tornado throughout this wide and lengthy portion of the path. Based on this damage, maximum estimated wind in this segment of the tornado was 110 to 120 mph. It was observed by multiple people and produced a radar-detected debris signature. The tornado continued into McDonald County, Missouri.

A National Weather Service storm survey confirmed an EF-1 tornado with maximum winds of 94 mph downed trees as it moved into McDonald County, Missouri from Delaware County, Oklahoma. The tornado originally touched down near Jay, Oklahoma and tracked more than 16 and a half miles, before uprooting trees as it crossed into Missouri and lifted a tenth of a mile into McDonald County, just east of the intersection of South 700 Road and County Road SW4355. No structural damage was noted in Missouri.

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

25 minutes of warning. NWS TSA issued a tornado warning for this county at 02:09 UTC, 25 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 03:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:35 UTC and running to 02:44 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 Enhanced Risk, with a 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 00:57 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 Tulsa radar (KINX), 85 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 02:33 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

34 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.