EF1 tornado, Dane to Cleo Springs, Oklahoma, March 5, 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

March 5, 2026

Touchdown

8:41 PM CST (02:41 UTC)

Lifted

8:55 PM CST (02:55 UTC)

On the ground

14 minutes

Path length

6.4 miles (10.3 km)

Path width

0 yards (0 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Major County

Touchdown point

36.360, -98.519

Lift-off point

36.437, -98.456

Highest wind the damage implies

100 mph

Surveyed by

NWS OUN

The office's name for it

W of Orienta and Cleo Springs

Survey last edited

March 7, 2026

Record number

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

37 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 115 mph.

• Several poles here; also north of the highway but inaccessible.
• Larger double pole structure broken

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

Scattered severe thunderstorms impacted portions of western and northern Oklahoma from the late evening of the 5th into early morning hours of the 6th. This activity developed in the vicinity of a dryline as a deep upper trough began to establish across the Four Coners. As a nocturnal low-level jet strengthened after sunset, a pair of cyclic tornadic thunderstorms emerged from the eastern Texas Panhandle into northern Oklahoma. In addition to several tornadoes, including a deadly tornado west of Fairview in Major County, large hail and eventually damaging wind gusts were observed with severe convection across the region.

This tornado developed near or just southwest of the intersection of County Roads E0560 Road and N2430 Road in Major County where it damaged trees and power poles and twisted a stop sign. The tornado quickly intensified as it approached US-60 west of Fairview. A car along US-60 was hit by this tornado and rolled approximately 520 yards to the northeast. A woman and her daughter were killed in his car. Wooden transmission line poles and standard wooden power poles were broken along and north of US-60. The tornado continued northeast through rural areas of Major County damaging additional trees before dissipating east or southeast of the intersection of E0500 Road and N2460 Road approximately 7 miles west of Fairview.

This tornado developed just south of US-412 and west of N2520 Road. Along US-412, one home along suffered roof damage, two outbuildings and power poles were damaged. As it moved northeast, additional trees and power poles were damaged before the tornado crossed the Cimarron River. Another home suffered minor damage near the end of the tornado path near E0400 Road about 2 miles west of State Highway 8.

The deaths

2 direct deaths are recorded for this tornado, each with what Storm Data knows of it.

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

36 minutes of warning. NWS OUN issued a tornado warning for this county at 02:05 UTC, 36 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 02:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 23:43 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 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. 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), 50 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 02:43 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

6 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.