Unrated tornado, Tahlequah Arpt, Oklahoma, May 2, 2022

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

May 2, 2022

Touchdown

9:03 PM CDT (02:03 UTC)

Path length

0.1 miles (0.2 km)

Path width

75 yards (69 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Cherokee County

Touchdown point

35.891, -95.024

Lift-off point

35.891, -95.024

Record number

2205022003-01

Thunderstorms developed across northern Texas and eastern Oklahoma during the early morning hours of the 2nd, as a warm front approached the area from the south. The strongest storm produced damaging wind gusts in Choctaw County.||Thunderstorms redeveloped across portions of southeastern Oklahoma during the afternoon. Strong instability south of the warm front, combined with strong wind shear, supported an environment for supercell thunderstorms. One such storm produced a tornado and damaging wind in Le Flore County. ||Another round of severe thunderstorms, which developed along the dry line across central Oklahoma during the afternoon, moved through eastern Oklahoma during the evening in the form of a squall line. The strongest storms within this line produced damaging wind gusts and large hail up to quarter size. A brief tornado also occurred in Cherokee County.

A brief tornado was observed over open country by emergency management. The tornado occurred in an area inaccessible by road, thus any damage that the tornado produced couldn't be evaluated.

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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 19:02 UTC and running to 03:00 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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:45 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), 5 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Tulsa radar (KINX), 58 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 02:04 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.

The live radar over the trackEvery 2022 tornado in OklahomaEvery tornado in Oklahoma since 1950Warnings in force in Oklahoma nowThe forecast where you are

10 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.