EF1 tornado, Pettit to Park Hill, Oklahoma, January 10, 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 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

January 10, 2020

Touchdown

2:49 PM CST (20:49 UTC)

Lifted

2:57 PM CST (20:57 UTC)

On the ground

8 minutes

Path length

5.8 miles (9.3 km)

Path width

250 yards (229 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$50,000

County

Cherokee County

Touchdown point

35.780, -95.023

Lift-off point

35.837, -94.948

Record number

2001101449-01

13 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS TSA, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 96 mph.

• Four hardwood trees uprooted in this area

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

A strong storm system and associated cold front moved into the Southern Plains on the 10th. Unseasonably warm and moist air spread northward from the Gulf of Mexico ahead of this system, resulting in weak to moderate instability developing across eastern Oklahoma and northwest Arkansas. This instability, combined with very strong wind fields and wind shear, resulted in organized severe thunderstorms. The strongest storms produced large hail up to golfball size, damaging wind, a tornado, and flash flooding.

This tornado damaged the roof of a permanent home and the roofs of two mobile homes, uprooted a number of trees, and damaged outbuildings. Based on this damage, maximum estimated wind in the tornado was 90 to 100 mph.

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

13 minutes of warning. NWS TSA issued a tornado warning for this county at 20:36 UTC, 13 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 21:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 16:42 UTC and running to 23:46 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 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 20:02 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.

Tahlequah Municipal (TQH), 14 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Tulsa radar (KINX), 66 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:49 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

17 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.