EF1 tornado, Pearsonia, Oklahoma, April 2, 2025

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 2, 2025

Touchdown

5:13 AM CDT (10:13 UTC)

Lifted

5:18 AM CDT (10:18 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

3.7 miles (6.0 km)

Path width

250 yards (229 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$10,000

County

Osage County

Touchdown point

36.764, -96.448

Lift-off point

36.791, -96.391

Record number

2504020413-01

2 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS TSA, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EFU. The highest wind the damage implies is 98 mph.

• multiple power poles snapped/being replaced
• Area of TDS (likely from tree damage based on aerial imagery) from KINX WSR-88D; area inaccessible by road

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

Strong to severe thunderstorms developed over western Oklahoma during the early morning hours of the 2nd, along and ahead of a cold front moving into the area. Moderately strong instability combined with strong low-level and deep layer wind shear resulted in the strongest storms developing organized rotation. A couple tornadoes and large hail up to quarter size occurred with the strongest storms in northeastern Oklahoma.

A tornado produced a Tornadic Debris Signature (TDS) from the KINX WSR-88D in an area of trees northwest of Pawhuska that was inaccessible by road. The tornado moved northeast and snapped multiple power poles west of County Road 4201. Any damage that occurred other than the power poles was inaccessible by road, and could therefore not be assessed. Much of the path details are estimates based on the radar TDS and aerial imagery. Based on the damage to the string of power poles, maximum estimated wind in the tornado was 90 to 100 mph.

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

6 minutes of warning. NWS TSA issued a tornado warning for this county at 10:07 UTC, 6 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 10:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 07:46 UTC and running to 12:55 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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 05:54 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), 102 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 10:14 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 2025 tornado in OklahomaEvery tornado in Oklahoma since 1950Warnings in force in Oklahoma nowThe forecast where you are

87 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 88 of them

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.