EF1 tornado, Frederick to Manitou, Oklahoma, October 12, 2021

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

October 12, 2021

Touchdown

7:41 PM CDT (00:41 UTC)

Lifted

7:58 PM CDT (00:58 UTC)

On the ground

17 minutes

Path length

7.3 miles (11.7 km)

Path width

300 yards (274 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$50,000

County

Tillman County

Touchdown point

34.372, -99.077

Lift-off point

34.476, -99.059

Record number

2110121841-01

12 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS OUN, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 107 mph.

• Numerous roof panels blown NE. Not damaged: adj temp building, wooden poles.
• Center pivot irrigator tipped over
• Center pivot irrigation tipped over
• Bradford pear, new power pole next to house

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

A warm front lifted north during the afternoon and evening of the 12th, with a couple supercells developing along it across southwest OK. Large hail, strong winds, and numerous tornadoes were reported with these storms as they moved northeastward. Later, a line of severe storms moved into far western OK along a cold front, with strong winds and hail reported with these storms.

Several storm chasers, including an off-duty meteorologist from the Storm Prediction Center, observed a brief tornado approximately 5 miles southwest of Frederick. No damage was reported and the location is estimated.

This tornado developed 3.5 miles southwest of Fredrick and moved north or just east of due north for 7 miles. A barn had significant wall damage to the northwest of Frederick. Otherwise, there were a few pivot irrigators that were tipped over to the southwest and west of Frederick, and tree and power pole damage was also observed along the path.

A tornado was observed for two minutes moving from Tillman County into Kiowa County. A barn roof and a few trees were damaged near the county line.

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

1 minute of warning. NWS OUN issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:40 UTC, 1 minute before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 22:34 UTC and running to 04:00 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:46 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 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.

The Altus AFB radar (KFDR), 11 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:43 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 2021 tornado in OklahomaEvery tornado in Oklahoma since 1950Warnings in force in Oklahoma nowThe forecast where you are

20 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.