Unrated tornado, Camp Houston, Oklahoma, April 24, 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 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

April 24, 2025

Touchdown

6:44 PM CDT (23:44 UTC)

Path length

0.3 miles (0.5 km)

Path width

30 yards (27 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Woods County

Touchdown point

36.791, -99.267

Lift-off point

36.791, -99.267

Record number

2504241744-01

A cluster of supercell thunderstorms developed along a modified surface boundary across northwestern Oklahoma during the evening of the 24th. While generally weak quasi-zonal flow fostered deep-layer wind shear magnitudes on the fringes for organized thunderstorms, very strong instability and enhanced vorticity along the surface boundary aided in rotating thunderstorms. Very large hail and a few tornadoes occurred with a pair of initially dominant supercell thunderstorms across Woodward and Woods County. Additional development occurred along the southwest flank of initial thunderstorms, with further reports of damaging winds occurring into the evening.

Chasers from OKC Television stations observed a second tornado estimated to be approximately 8 or 9 miles west of Camp Houston in an inaccessible area of salt flats of the Cimarron River, this time likely on the Woods County side of the river. No damage was reported to NWS or emergency management.

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

29 minutes of warning. NWS OUN issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:15 UTC, 29 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:00 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 22:14 UTC and running to 05:00 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. The outlook in force was issued at 19:43 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 Vance AFB radar (KVNX), 102 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:41 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

12 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.