Tornadoes · United States · Oklahoma · 2021
EF0 tornado, Catoosa, Oklahoma, November 10, 2021
This EF0 tornado ran 0.3 miles across Rogers County on November 10, 2021, touching down at 7:29 PM CST and reaching 80 yards wide. It killed nobody.
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
- November 10, 2021
- Touchdown
- 7:29 PM CST (01:29 UTC)
- Lifted
- 7:30 PM CST (01:30 UTC)
- On the ground
- 1 minutes
- Path length
- 0.3 miles (0.5 km)
- Path width
- 80 yards (73 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Rogers County
- Touchdown point
- 36.179, -95.764
- Lift-off point
- 36.180, -95.758
- Record number
- 2111101929-01
The damage survey
16 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.
- several barns damaged, grain silo damaged
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
Strong to severe thunderstorms developed into eastern Oklahoma during the evening of the 10th, ahead of a cold front approaching the area. In response to a strong upper level disturbance translating into the Southern Plains from the west during the day, wind fields and low level wind shear strengthened across eastern Oklahoma ahead of the approaching thunderstorms. The thunderstorms organized into a squall line that moved across the area, with the strongest storms producing damaging wind. A portion of the line of thunderstorms accelerated forward, and low-level circulations developed along the leading edge of this portion of the line, which resulted in several brief tornadoes.
This tornado snapped large tree limbs. Based on this damage, maximum estimated wind in the tornado was 75 to 80 mph.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
9 minutes of warning. NWS TSA issued a tornado warning for this county at 01:20 UTC, 9 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:30 UTC.
The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 21:26 UTC and running to 04:00 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 21:26 UTC | 04:00 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Watch | TSA |
| 01:07 UTC | 01:45 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | TSA |
| 01:20 UTC | 01:30 UTC | Tornado Warning | TSA |
| 01:22 UTC | 01:45 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | TSA |
| 01:23 UTC | 04:15 UTC | Flood Advisory | TSA |
| 01:26 UTC | 02:00 UTC | Tornado Warning | TSA |
| 01:29 UTC | 02:15 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | TSA |
| 01:51 UTC | 02:04 UTC | Tornado Warning | TSA |
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 00:46 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
1.5 hours before the tornado, 182 km from the path. November 11, 2021.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 964 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -28 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 1559 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 884 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 35 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 23 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 186 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 206 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.6
- Supercell composite
- 4.4
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 6.2 K/km
The radar
The Tulsa radar (KINX), 18 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:29 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 00:40 UTC | TSTM WND GST 65 | 11 W Sapulpa | Creek, OK | |
| 01:09 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 4 Wsw Tulsa | Tulsa, OK | TREE DOWNED BY THUNDERSTORM WINDS AND BLOCKING RIVERSIDE DRIVE. |
| 01:13 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 1 E Tulsa | Tulsa, OK | SOCIAL MEDIA REPORT WITH PICTURE OF LARGE TREE DOWNED BY THUNDERSTORM WINDS. |
| 01:14 UTC | TORNADO | 3 W Tulsa | Tulsa, OK | AN EF-0 TORNADO SNAPPED LARGE TREE LIMBS IN WOODWARD PARK. |
| 01:15 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 1 W Tulsa | Tulsa, OK | SOCIAL MEDIA REPORT WITH PICTURE OF LARGE TREES DAMAGED BY THUNDERSTORM WINDS. |
| 01:20 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 5 Nnw Broken Arrow | Tulsa, OK | POWER LINES DOWN AND BROKEN POWER POLES ALONG 31ST STREET BETWEEN 130TH AND 137TH EAST AVE. TIME IS APPROXIMATE. |
| 01:21 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 4 E Tulsa | Tulsa, OK | SOCIAL MEDIA WITH PIC SHOWING TREE DAMAGE. POSSIBLE TORNADO DAMAGE PATH. |
| 01:21 UTC | TORNADO | 4 Wsw Catoosa | Tulsa, OK | BROKEN LIMBS LARGER THAN 3 INCHES IN DIAMETER AS WELL AS SIGNS BLOWN OVER A FEW BLOCKS SOUTH OF ADMIRAL ON 145TH EAST AVE. |
| 01:26 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 5 Nne Broken Arrow | Tulsa, OK | GRAIN SILO FLIPPED ON ITS SIDE. TREE BLOWN DOWN AND ONTO A FENCE. PART OF A HORSE BARN ROOF BLOWN OFF. DAMAGE OCCURRED AROUND THE EAST 31ST AND COUNTY LINE ROAD AREA. |
| 01:26 UTC | TORNADO | 5 Nne Broken Arrow | Wagoner, OK | AN EF-0 TORNADO DAMAGED BARNS, SNAPPED LARGE TREE LIMBS, AND DAMAGED A SMALL GRAIN SILO. |
| 01:29 UTC | TORNADO | 1 Sw Catoosa | Rogers, OK | AN EF-0 TORNADO SNAPPED LARGE TREE LIMBS. |
| 01:48 UTC | HAIL 0.75 | 3 Sw Bixby | Tulsa, OK |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2021 tornado in OklahomaEvery tornado in Oklahoma since 1950Warnings in force in Oklahoma nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of November 10, 2021
3 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| November 10 | 6:35 PM CST | Unrated | Stephens, OK | 4.0 | 100 | |||
| November 10 | 7:14 PM CST | EF0 | Tulsa, OK | 0.5 | 150 | $25,000 | ||
| November 10 | 7:26 PM CST | EF0 | Wagoner, OK | 0.4 | 100 | $75,000 |
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.