Tornadoes · United States · Oklahoma · 2019
EF0 tornado, (Oun)Norman Westheimer Arpt, Oklahoma, May 25, 2019
This EF0 tornado ran 0.7 miles across Cleveland County on May 25, 2019, touching down at 10:56 PM CDT and reaching 30 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $10,000 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 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
- May 25, 2019
- Touchdown
- 10:56 PM CDT (03:56 UTC)
- Lifted
- 10:57 PM CDT (03:57 UTC)
- On the ground
- 1 minutes
- Path length
- 0.7 miles (1.1 km)
- Path width
- 30 yards (27 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $10,000
- County
- Cleveland County
- Touchdown point
- 35.249, -97.552
- Lift-off point
- 35.246, -97.542
- Record number
- 1905252156-01
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 EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 85 mph.
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
Scattered supercells merged into a linear system that produced a variety of severe weather on the 25th.
A QLCS tornado developed with a line of storms in far western portions of the city of Norman near 72nd Avenue NW and Rock Creek Road. This tornado damaged buildings and a mobile home as well as a number of trees as it moved east-southeast.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
16 minutes of warning. NWS OUN issued a tornado warning for this county at 03:40 UTC, 16 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 04:00 UTC.
The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 23:22 UTC and running to 06:00 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 23:22 UTC | 06:00 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Watch | OUN |
| 03:12 UTC | 09:15 UTC | Flash Flood Warning | OUN |
| 03:22 UTC | 04:30 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | OUN |
| 03:40 UTC | 04:00 UTC | Tornado Warning | OUN |
| 04:21 UTC | 05:15 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | OUN |
| 04:44 UTC | 05:30 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | OUN |
| 09:16 UTC | 09:15 UTC | Flood Warning | OUN |
| 20:41 UTC | 09:08 UTC | Flood 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 00:41 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), 00:00Z
3.9 hours before the tornado, 14 km from the path. May 26, 2019.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 1531 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -29 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 3625 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1082 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 47 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 20 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 98 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 111 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 1.5
- Supercell composite
- 12.6
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.6 K/km
Norman, OK (KOUN), 12:00Z
8.1 hours after it, 14 km from the path. May 26, 2019.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 97 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -335 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 919 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 47 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 35 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 262 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 278 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.5
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 3.0 K/km
The radar
The Norman radar (KTLX), 26 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 03:59 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 03:26 UTC | TORNADO | 2 S El Reno | Canadian, OK | TDS NOTED MINUTES LATER. |
| 03:30 UTC | TSTM WND GST 64 | 2 Ssw Minco | Grady, OK | |
| 03:38 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 3 Ne Bridge Creek | Grady, OK | SOME TREE DEBRIS IN BRIDGE CREEK AREA. MOSTLY SMALL LIMBS DOWN AND ONE HANGING FROM A POWER LINE. |
| 03:43 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 3 N Bridge Creek | Grady, OK | OVERTURNED 16X8 STORAGE BUILDING, LOCATED 1.2 MILES SOUTH OF OK37 ON MUSTANG ROAD. |
| 03:45 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 3 Ene Bridge Creek | Grady, OK | FENCE PANELS BLOWN OVER AND SCATTERED TREE DAMAGE. TIME ESTIMATED FROM RADAR. |
| 03:53 UTC | TORNADO | 6 Nw Del City | Oklahoma, OK | |
| 03:55 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 5 Nne Oklahoma City | Oklahoma, OK | TREE DAMAGE AT REMINGTON PARK. UPROOTED TREE AND BROKEN OFF TREE LIMBS. TWITTER REPORT WITH PICTURES. TIME ESTIMATED FROM RADAR. |
| 04:20 UTC | FLASH FLOOD | 2 Nw Moore | Cleveland, OK | EXCESSIVE AMOUNT OF WATER COVERING THE ROADS BETWEEN 19TH STREET AND 27TH ST. IN MOORE ON SANTA FE. SOME AREAS AREA ARE 4 INCHES. |
| 04:52 UTC | FLASH FLOOD | 7 Ese Seward | Logan, OK | WATER OVER ROAD JUST NORTH OF CHARTER OAK ROAD ON DOUGLAS ROAD. |
| 05:14 UTC | FLASH FLOOD | 4 Nnw Arcadia | Logan, OK | WATER OVER THE ROAD ON WATERLOO EAST OF I-35. |
| 05:18 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 2 Nne Bridge Creek | Grady, OK | MORE TREES DOWN AND DAMAGED ALONG TECUMSEH ROAD JUST EAST OF SARA RD IN BRIDGE CREEK. |
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 May 25, 2019
21 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 25 | 4:59 PM CDT | Unrated | Hockley, TX | 1.1 | 30 | |||
| May 25 | 5:39 PM CDT | EF2 | Hale, TX | 1.7 | 100 | $250,000 | ||
| May 25 | 6:42 PM EDT | EF1 | Carroll, OH | 0.5 | 50 | $60,000 | ||
| May 25 | 6:08 PM CDT | Unrated | Hale, TX | 4.6 | 100 | |||
| May 25 | 7:04 PM CDT | Unrated | Greer, OK | 0.3 | 30 | |||
| May 25 | 7:14 PM CDT | Unrated | Beckham, OK | 0.2 | 50 | |||
| May 25 | 8:27 PM EDT | EF1 | Indiana, PA | 5.1 | 35 | |||
| May 25 | 8:32 PM EDT | EF0 | Indiana, PA | 0.1 | 20 | |||
| May 25 | 7:40 PM CDT | Unrated | Hall, TX | 0.0 | 30 | |||
| May 25 | 10:28 PM CDT | EF3 | Canadian, OK | 2.2 | 75 | 2 | 29 | $400,000 |
| May 25 | 10:46 PM CDT | EF0 | Oklahoma, OK | 0.9 | 50 | $20,000 | ||
| May 25 | 10:49 PM CDT | EF0 | Oklahoma, OK | 0.7 | 50 | $20,000 | ||
| May 25 | 10:53 PM CDT | EF0 | Oklahoma, OK | 0.5 | 30 | $10,000 | ||
| May 25 | 10:57 PM CDT | EF0 | Oklahoma, OK | 0.2 | 30 | $2,000 | ||
| May 25 | 11:14 PM CDT | EF1 | Tazewell, IL | 1.1 | 200 | |||
| May 25 | 11:19 PM CDT | EF1 | Tazewell, IL | 0.7 | 150 | |||
| May 25 | 12:04 AM CDT | EF1 | Creek, OK | 2.6 | 200 | $40,000 | ||
| May 25 | 12:14 AM CDT | EF1 | Creek, OK | 10.7 | 1,000 | $250,000 | ||
| May 25 | 12:21 AM CDT | EF1 | Creek, OK | 12.5 | 1,400 | $760,000 | ||
| May 25 | 12:27 AM CDT | EF1 | Tulsa, OK | 12.3 | 2,200 | $1.1 million | ||
| May 25 | 12:51 AM CDT | EF0 | Tulsa, OK | 1.8 | 400 | $175,000 |
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.