EF1 tornado, Peggs to Teresita, Oklahoma, April 28, 2024

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

April 28, 2024

Touchdown

1:23 AM CDT (06:23 UTC)

Lifted

1:30 AM CDT (06:30 UTC)

On the ground

7 minutes

Path length

4.3 miles (6.9 km)

Path width

350 yards (320 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Cherokee County

Touchdown point

36.103, -95.093

Lift-off point

36.131, -95.025

Record number

2404280023-01

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 EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 107 mph.

• Single tree some limbs broken nearby. Flooded low water crossing prevented us from following damage further to the northeast to verify a circulation.
• Concentrated tree damage, converging along path.
• Somewhat concentrated damage slightly more northeast leaning but this and damage to west was consistently in an easterly direction.
• Numerous trees snapped along the road. Relatively small trunks.

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

Severe thunderstorms developed during the afternoon of the 27th over central Oklahoma, along and ahead of the dry line, as a strong upper level low pressure system deepened into the Southern Rockies. Strong instability and strong wind shear over eastern Oklahoma supported organized severe thunderstorms, including supercells. The first round of storms affected portions of far northeastern Oklahoma during the early evening. By late evening, a line of severe thunderstorms moved into eastern Oklahoma from the west, with embedded supercells within the line, as well as a supercell ahead of the line. A strong tornado moved into Okfuskee County with the supercell ahead of the line. Multiple other tornadoes occurred as the storms moved through the area during the early morning hours of the 28th, along with damaging thunderstorm wind gusts. Isolated areas of flash flooding also occurred.||Another round of severe thunderstorms developed across eastern Oklahoma during the afternoon of the 28th. The strongest storms produced tornadoes, large hail to quarter size, and damaging wind gusts.

This tornado developed east-northeast of Peggs, and moved northeast across northern Cherokee County. The tornado snapped and uprooted trees along its path. Based on this damage, maximum estimated wind in the tornado was 100 to 105 mph.

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

36 minutes of warning. NWS TSA issued a tornado warning for this county at 05:47 UTC, 36 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 06:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 00:51 UTC and running to 08:00 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 06:00 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), 21 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Tulsa radar (KINX), 46 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 06:22 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 2024 tornado in OklahomaEvery tornado in Oklahoma since 1950Warnings in force in Oklahoma nowThe forecast where you are

18 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.