EF1 tornado, (Okc)Will Rogers Apt to Del City, Oklahoma, May 6, 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

May 6, 2024

Touchdown

11:39 PM CDT (04:39 UTC)

Lifted

11:42 PM CDT (04:42 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

2.2 miles (3.5 km)

Path width

75 yards (69 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$300,000

County

Oklahoma County

Touchdown point

35.378, -97.543

Lift-off point

35.397, -97.512

Record number

2405062239-01

79 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.

• A little more shingle damage
• Likely end point. A couple weak fences blown down.
• Numerous large limbs snapped. Damage becoming more substantial as we head SW.
• Half dead tree but took healthy part

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

A significant severe weather outbreak, including ten (10) tornadoes, impacted northern and central portions of the WFO Norman Forecast Area during the evening of the 6th into the early morning hours of the 7th. The synoptic pattern across the western half of the Continental United States favored a significant severe weather episode across the region, with a powerful (110-120 knot) upper-level jet streak ejecting across the Central Plains during the evening of the 6th. In concert with robust kinematics in place, extreme instability (pockets of >4000-5000 J/kg of CAPE) promoted an environment favorable for significant severe weather. As such, the Storm Prediction Center issued a rare 'High Risk' of severe weather for portions of central and northern Oklahoma, the first to include portions of the WFO Norman Forecast Area since 20 May 2019. ||Initial supercell thunderstorms developed in the late afternoon off an accelerating dryline/Pacific front near the 100th meridian. These initial supercell thunderstorms produced large to very large hail and damaging wind gusts, though failed to undergo tornadogenesis. This may have been due to the propensity for rapid and strong downdraft surges in the vicinity of low-level mesocyclones (among other factors). With time, as storms matured and moved into an environment characterized by richer low-level moisture, and as low-level flow increased, multiple tornado occurrences did result. Additional supercell thunderstorms and thunderstorm clusters developed by the late evening of the 6th across west-central into central Oklahoma. A particularly impactful cluster moved across the southern Oklahoma City Metropolitan area, producing numerous reports of significant thunderstorm wind damage (and gusts) and two weak tornadoes.

This tornado developed just north of the Oklahoma-Cleveland County line east of Indiana Avenue. The tornado moved northeast through southern Oklahoma City, crossing near the Interstate 240 and Walker Avenue interchange and then dissipating south of Southeast 66th Street and Santa Fe Avenue. A few apartment buildings received roof damage near Southwest 84th Avenue and Douglas Avenue, as well as at two apartment complexes north of Interstate 240 near Santa Fe Avenue. Businesses were damaged along Western Avenue just south of Lightning Creek Park and near Interstate 240 and Walker Avenue and tree damage occurred throughout the path.||This storm also produced wind damage both southwest and northeast of this tornado path, but evidence suggests that these other areas of damage were from thunderstorm winds, primarily with the Rear Flank Downdraft of the storm.

The thunderstorms that produced one tornado in south Oklahoma City continued to produce wind damage as it moved northeast. However evidence suggests that it produced one additional brief tornado from near Highland Park Drive and Southeast 38th Street just southeast of Trosper Park in Oklahoma City to near Glenn Avenue and Southeast 24th Street in Del City. The most significant damage was a mobile home that was pushed off the foundation southeast of Trosper Park, otherwise damage was light.

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 19:05 UTC and running to 05:53 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 High Risk, with a 0.30 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 00:50 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 Norman radar (KTLX), 23 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 04:40 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

40 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.