Unrated tornado, Madill to Little City, Oklahoma, April 22, 2020

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 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. Unratedthis tornado

   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

Unrated

Date

April 22, 2020

Touchdown

4:45 PM CDT (21:45 UTC)

Path length

0.2 miles (0.3 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Marshall County

Touchdown point

34.049, -96.819

Lift-off point

34.049, -96.819

Record number

2004221545-01

54 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 131 mph.

• And chimney damage. Via State EM.

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

A dryline and upper level wave combined with strong shear to produce multiple tornadic supercells across southern Oklahoma on the 22nd.

Spotters and chasers observed a brief tornado southwest of Madill. This tornado produced no known damage and the location is estimated.

The Madill tornado initially developed near State Highway 99C and west of Breezy Hill Road. The tornado moved east-northeast along and just north of Highway 99C and then crossed US-377 and moved through the southern portion of the city of Madill. The tornado turned east-southeast and dissipated about 2 miles southeast of the center of Madill. EF2 damage was noted to houses and industrial buildings in the south part of Madill and to power poles along the path.||Heavy damage occurred at J and I Manufacturing just southwest of Madill and the Oklahoma Steel and Wire on the southeast side of Madill. One person was ejected from his car and killed near the intersection of Highway 377 and Highway 99C when his car was hit by the tornado. And a truck driver from Mississippi who was making a delivery at Oklahoma Steel and Wire was outside of his truck, struck by falling debris and killed at the plant. One person was airlifted to a hospital in Plano Texas in critical condition, and an unknown number of people suffered minor injuries that did not require transport.

Spotters and chasers observed a third tornado from the Madill storm east of Madill. An NWS storm survey noted damage to utility poles and trees southwest of Little City and west of Cumberland.

The deaths

2 direct deaths are recorded for this tornado, each with what Storm Data knows of it.

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

21 minutes of warning. NWS OUN issued a tornado warning for this county at 21:24 UTC, 21 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 22:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 19:34 UTC and running to 23:18 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. The outlook in force was issued at 19:37 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.

Ardmore Downtown Exec Airport (1F0), 30 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Norman radar (KTLX), 149 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:44 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 2020 tornado in OklahomaEvery tornado in Oklahoma since 1950Warnings in force in Oklahoma nowThe forecast where you are

19 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.