EF0 tornado, Nardin to Braman, Oklahoma, April 23, 2026

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

   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. 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

EF0, preliminary

Date

April 23, 2026

Touchdown

7:07 PM CDT (00:07 UTC)

Path length

0.4 miles (0.7 km)

Path width

0 yards (0 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Kay County

Touchdown point

36.900, -97.422

Lift-off point

36.895, -97.422

Surveyed by

NWS OUN

The office's name for it

Braman Satellite 1

Survey last edited

April 25, 2026

Record number

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

Satellite tornado observed on video. Path is somewhat estimated.

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

28 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS OUN, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 125 mph.

• or possibly with the satellite tornado.
• North end of replaced poles
• Multiple poles snapped - one pole thrown to an unknown location.
• Well-constructed wood barn with bolts suffered partial collapse, likely triggered by open-sided door. Cows inside survived.

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

The first of several days of severe weather across the WFO Norman Forecast Area featured intense thunderstorms (supercells) across northern Oklahoma on the evening of the 23rd. An emerging upper trough and sharp dryline facilitated development of scattered intense supercell thunderstorms across portions of northern Oklahoma, with reports of large to very large hail, thunderstorm wind damage and several tornadoes. In addition to a family of well-documented tornadoes from east of Medford, Oklahoma (Grant County) to near Braman, Oklahoma (Kay County), a violent tornado impacted areas around Vance Air Force Base and the south/east extents of Enid, Oklahoma. This tornado prompted a rare Tornado Emergency, the first in the WFO Norman Forecast Area since May 19th, 2024.

Braman Tornado: Numerous spotters and chasers observed this tornado develop in western Kay County. The initial damage occurred near 140th Street and Earth Road where a tree was uprooted and a farm house suffered roof damage. The tornado continued generally east breaking a power pole on 124th Street south of Earth Road and destroying a barn and damaging more power poles and trees near Earth Road east of 124th Street. The first of two satellite tornadoes developed in this area near Earth Road between 124th and 108th. The primary tornado moved north, then looped back around to an easterly movement as the motion of both the primary tornado and the satellite tornado was influenced by the Fujiwhara effect.||As the primary tornado moved east-northeast after this interaction, a barn was destroyed along Earth Road east of 108th Street, and a number of trees and power poles were damaged along 76th Street near Fork Road. As the tornado was crossing the Chickaskia River, a second satellite tornado developed and rotated around this primary tornado. The tornado continued east snapping power poles along 60th Street, and destroying two barns and more power poles along 44th Street just south of the city limits of Braman. The survey and mobile radar data from the Doppler on Wheels project show that the tornado made another loop just southeast of Braman and east of US-177, then moved southeast damaging trees along Fork Road east of 29th Street before dissipating.

Numerous videos from storm chasers documented a satellite tornado partially rotating around the Braman tornado approximately 5 miles west-southwest of Braman. The path is estimated but likely occurred east of 124th Street moving southwest then southeast crossing Earth Road. If this tornado produced damage, it was indistinguishable from damage caused by the Braman tornado.

Numerous videos show a second satellite tornado rotating around the Braman tornado before it crossed Interstate 35. High-resolution research radar scans from the Doppler on Wheels project sampled this and the Braman tornado, and a good track of this tornado could be determined. This satellite tornado formed near or north of Fork Road west of 60th Street, initially moved north-northeast and rotated about 3/4 of the way around the Braman tornado before dissipating south of the Braman tornado. The path length was approximately 2.9 miles despite it dissipating only about 1/2 mile southwest of where it developed. Any damage produced by this satellite tornado was indistinguishable from the damage caused by the primary Braman tornado.

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

33 minutes of warning. NWS OUN issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:34 UTC, 33 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 22:12 UTC and running to 06:00 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 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 19:45 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), 65 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:07 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

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

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.