EF0 tornado, Olive, Oklahoma, March 19, 2020

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

   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. 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

EF0

Date

March 19, 2020

Touchdown

1:53 AM CDT (06:53 UTC)

Lifted

1:55 AM CDT (06:55 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

0.6 miles (1.0 km)

Path width

75 yards (69 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$35,000

County

Creek County

Touchdown point

36.002, -96.480

Lift-off point

36.008, -96.474

Record number

2003190053-01

5 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS TSA, 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.

Strong to severe thunderstorms developed over northwestern Texas and southwestern Oklahoma during the evening of the 18th. These storms moved northeast and affected portions of northeastern Oklahoma during the early morning hours of the 19th. Although instability had decreased ahead of these storms during the night-time hours, wind shear had strengthened significantly as these storms moved into northeast Oklahoma. As a result, one of these storms produced a tornado in Creek County. In addition, some of these thunderstorms moved repeatedly across the same areas, which resulted in locally heavy rainfall that combined with saturated soils, produced flash flooding. Another round of thunderstorms moved across northeastern Oklahoma later that morning. Another tornado developed with these thunderstorms, as well as locally damaging wind and flash flooding.||In addition to the flash flooding and severe weather, these multiple rounds of thunderstorms resulted in widespread heavy rainfall across northeastern Oklahoma. One to three inches fell across much of the area, with a heavier axis of three to six inches. This widespread heavy rainfall resulted in moderate flooding of the Caney and Neosho Rivers, and major flooding of the Illinois River.

This tornado developed just south of Highway 33 and west of S 433rd West Avenue, where large tree limbs were snapped. It moved northeast destroying an open air barn, uprooting a tree, and damaging a home. The tornado then blew the roof from a mobile home, and blew the roof off a barn east of S 433rd West Avenue. Based on this damage, maximum estimated wind in the tornado was 80 to 85 mph.

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.

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 Marginal Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 05:49 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.

Cushing (CUH), 27 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

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

11 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.