EF1 tornado, Ponca City to Apperson, Oklahoma, April 17, 2026

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, as surveyed

EF1, preliminary

Date

April 17, 2026

Touchdown

7:03 PM CDT (00:03 UTC)

Lifted

7:19 PM CDT (00:19 UTC)

On the ground

16 minutes

Path length

14.4 miles (23.2 km)

Path width

1,200 yards (1097 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Counties

Kay and Osage counties

Touchdown point

36.685, -97.064

Lift-off point

36.713, -96.808

Highest wind the damage implies

105 mph

Surveyed by

NWS OUN and NWS TSA

Survey last edited

June 26, 2026

Record number

None yet. SPC numbers 2026 in the spring of 2027.

This tornado developed west of Ponca City. It moved east into Osage County and across McCord, where numerous trees were uprooted, power poles were blown down, and homes and businesses were damaged. The tornado continued to move east, roughly paralleling the Arkansas River, and briefly back into Kay County, south of McFadden Cove. It uprooted and snapped numerous trees and damaged homes southeast of McFadden Cove after moving back into Osage County. The tornado moved east-northeast across Kaw Dam Road, Osage Cove Road, and Burbank Landing Road before dissipating over open terrain.

Written by NWS OUN and NWS TSA in the NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit. A survey is revised as better evidence arrives.

12 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 95 mph.

• Social media report of large tree branches blown down here.
• Shallow rooted. Unhealthy tree

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

A severe weather episode, with widespread reports of large to very large hail and a tornado, impacted portions of northern Oklahoma during the afternoon and evening of the 17th. Numerous supercells developed along a trailing cold front, with strong wind shear and instability promoting hail sizes as large as tennis ball to just smaller than softball with multiple thunderstorms. A more organized supercell also produced a tornado on the south side of Ponca City, continuing into portions of Osage County (see NWS Tulsa writeup for more information). Additional thunderstorm activity continued into the late evening and early morning hours of the 18th, focusing along a southeastward advancing cold front. This portion of the event featured mainly occasional damaging wind gusts and small hail.

Thunderstorms developed over north central Oklahoma during the early evening of the 17th, as a cold front moved into the area. The atmosphere became moderately unstable ahead of the cold front across northeastern Oklahoma and deep-layer wind shear increased during the afternoon and evening with the approach of an upper level disturbance. The resulting combination of instability and wind shear supported the evolution of a supercell thunderstorm that produced a couple tornadoes in Osage County. The thunderstorms also produced damaging wind. ||As the cold front progressed through eastern Oklahoma during the late evening of the 17th and early morning hours of the 18th, thunderstorms continued to develop across the area. The strongest thunderstorm produced golf ball size hail in Choctaw County.

An OKC television storm chaser observed this tornado develop southwest of the intersection of US-60 and SH-156 to the west of Ponca City. The tornado initially moved northeast crossing US-60, and then turned east-southeast after crossing Ranch Drive. Tree damage was noted just north and along the US-60 and US-60-Business interchange. The tornado continued east into the far southern portion of Ponca City. A power pole bent and a trees were damaged in far south Ponca City. The tornado crossed the Arkansas River into Osage County (see Storm Data from NWS Tulsa).

This is the second segment of a four-segment tornado. This tornado moved east from Ponca City in Kay County into Osage County and across McCord, where numerous trees were uprooted, power poles were blown down, and homes and businesses were damaged. The tornado continued to move east, roughly paralleling the Arkansas River, and moved back into Kay County, south of McFadden Cove. Based on this damage, maximum estimated wind in this segment of the tornado was 95 to 105 mph.

The tornado that began west of Ponca City moved back crossed a bend of the Arkansas River moving back into Kay County from Osage County. This tornado moved through a rural area of bottomlands along the Arkansas River. No known damage occurred in this area before the tornado crossed the Arkansas River again into Osage County. See Storm Data from NWS Tulsa for the documentation of this tornado in Osage County.

While the tornado that formed west of Ponca City was passing to the south of Kaw Lake, observers witnessed a second tornado develop near the southwest portion of Kaw Lake. The witnesses watched the tornado develop on a hill just northwest of McFadden Cove, and then move southeast across Hideaway Marina causing damage to boat shelters and docks at the marina. The tornado continued southeast as a waterspout over the southwestern portion of Kaw Lake, then moved into Osage County just east of the dam. See the Storm Data report from the NWS office in Tulsa for details of this tornado in Osage County.

This is the fourth segment of a four-segment tornado. This tornado moved back into Osage County from Kay County, south of McFadden Cove. It uprooted and snapped numerous trees and damaged homes southeast of McFadden Cove. The tornado moved east-northeast across Kaw Dam Road, Osage Cove Road, and Burbank Landing Road before dissipating over open terrain. Based on this damage, maximum estimated wind in this segment of the tornado was 95 to 105 mph.

This is the second segment of a two-segment tornado. This tornado crossed into Osage County from Kay County, after damaging boat docks at the marina. In Osage County, a few trees were uprooted south of Kaw Dam Road. Based on this damage, maximum estimated wind in this segment of the tornado was 85 to 95 mph.

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

6 minutes of warning. NWS OUN issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:57 UTC, 6 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:24 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 18:40 UTC and running to 02:00 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 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 19:53 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.

Ponca City Municipal (PNC), 15 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Vance AFB radar (KVNX), 106 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:02 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 2026 tornado in OklahomaEvery tornado in Oklahoma since 1950Warnings in force in Oklahoma nowThe forecast where you are

87 more have been surveyed in the United States that day, so far.

All 88 of them

Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. A survey can be revised, so the rating, the path and the casualties can all still change.

NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit, the record the survey teams file from the damage, and NOAA Storm Prediction Center storm reports. Neither is the official database for 2026, which SPC publishes in the spring of 2027.