EF0 tornado, Green, Oklahoma, January 2, 2023

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

January 2, 2023

Touchdown

5:32 PM CST (23:32 UTC)

Lifted

5:43 PM CST (23:43 UTC)

On the ground

11 minutes

Path length

5.3 miles (8.5 km)

Path width

700 yards (640 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$50,000

County

Mayes County

Touchdown point

36.346, -95.298

Lift-off point

36.397, -95.228

Record number

2301021732-01

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 81 mph.

• Debris to southeast in field. New barn
• Shingles off house. Flashing pealed up. Tree branch broken.
• Shingles missing, siding pealedoff
• Measured by Oklahoma Mesonet

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

Unseasonably warm, moist, and unstable air was in place across eastern Oklahoma on January 2nd, ahead of an approaching cold front and strong upper level disturbance. Strong to severe thunderstorms developed into and across eastern Oklahoma during the|afternoon and evening. The moderately unstable air combined with strong deep-layer and low-level wind shear resulted in the evolution of some of the thunderstorms into supercells. Several of these supercells produced tornadoes, along with large hail up to ping pong ball size and damaging wind gusts.

This tornado developed just east of Highway 69 and south of the 460 Road. Two outbuildings were damaged as it moved northeast across the 460 Road, and another outbuilding was destroyed as it crossed the 450 Road. The tornado then moved over the Oklahoma Mesonet Pryor station, which measured an 81 mph wind gust. The tornado continued moving northeast across the 440 Road and then the 430 Road, where the roof and siding of a home were damaged. It dissipated over open country north of the 430 Road and west of the N 437 Road. 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.

1 minute of warning. NWS TSA issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:31 UTC, 1 minute before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 21:34 UTC and running to 02:43 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 19:58 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 Tulsa radar (KINX), 35 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:29 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.

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 2023 tornado in OklahomaEvery tornado in Oklahoma since 1950Warnings in force in Oklahoma nowThe forecast where you are

14 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.