EF1 tornado, Arnett, Oklahoma, June 17, 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

June 17, 2025

Touchdown

8:07 PM CDT (01:07 UTC)

Lifted

8:10 PM CDT (01:10 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

1.8 miles (2.9 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$20,000

County

Ellis County

Touchdown point

36.018, -99.954

Lift-off point

36.014, -99.922

Record number

2506171907-01

64 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS OUN, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EFU. The highest wind the damage implies is 123 mph.

• From Roger Mills Co EM: damage to trees and round hay bales thrown around
• A home that was burned in the Smokehouse Creek Fire, but the storm scattered some of the remnants.
• RM Co EM: tree fell on house
• Ellis Co EM: lean-to on north side ripped off taking barn roof with it

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

In addition to a morning complex of severe thunderstorms, a multi-modal severe weather outbreak impacted portions of northern and central Oklahoma during the evening of the 17th. Initial thunderstorm coverage during the morning across northern Oklahoma featured a few reports of thunderstorm wind damage/gusts. After quickly moving eastward, allowing for substantial airmass recovery across the area, additional severe thunderstorms developed ahead of an approaching synoptic wave by the early evening. Initial thunderstorms impacted the Oklahoma/Kansas border areas of Kay County, producing a few reports of large hail. All the while, an intense supercell thunderstorm was drifting from the northeastern Texas Panhandle into portions of western Oklahoma. This storm became tornadic as it crossed into Ellis and Roger Mills County, producing a significant (EF-2) tornado here. As this thunderstorm grew upscale, along with additional development to its north, an organized mesoscale convective system (MCS) took shape. Numerous reports of wind damage and three brief tornadoes occurred as this system swept eastward across the northern one-half of the forecast area.

This large tornado started near the Texas state line and moved southeast through southwestern Ellis County. It was rain-wrapped much of the time, although research radars and the damage survey confirmed it's existence.||The tornado moved southeast causing extensive roof damage to a home and a barn as well as causing significant damage in groves of trees near Little Robe Creek, including snapping and debarking the trees. The tornado continued southeast and caused more extensive tree damage along County Roads D1695 and E0720. One home that had been burned in the Smokehouse Creek wildfire (February 2024) was further damaged with the tornado scattering the remnants of the house.||The tornado severely damaged more trees and downed power line along County Roads N1730 and E0730 and along the Canadian River before crossing into Roger Mills County.

While the large rain-wrapped tornado was moving through southwest Ellis County, storm chasers observed a parallel tornado. Information from emergency management and an NWS storm survey indicated this tornado produced tree damage along County Road N1710, then damaged two barns along County Road E0690 as the tornado moved east-southeast.

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

3 minutes of warning. NWS OUN issued a tornado warning for this county at 01:04 UTC, 3 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:40 UTC and running to 03:00 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 Enhanced Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:57 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), 181 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:09 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

21 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.