EF3 tornado, Beggs to Hector, Oklahoma, March 6, 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 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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF3, preliminary

Date

March 6, 2026

Touchdown

7:17 PM CST (01:17 UTC)

Lifted

7:29 PM CST (01:29 UTC)

On the ground

12 minutes

Path length

6.8 miles (10.9 km)

Path width

950 yards (869 m)

Deaths

2

Injuries

2

County

Okmulgee County

Touchdown point

35.748, -96.088

Lift-off point

35.812, -96.004

Highest wind the damage implies

137 mph

Surveyed by

NWS TSA

Survey last edited

March 10, 2026

Record number

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

The tornado began on the west side of Beggs, directly impacting the Beggs Public Schools campus.

The High School and Middle School roof sustained significant damage, and the bus barn was also suffered heavy damage to the roof and overhead doors. As it moved northeast, it crossed 15th Street, uprooting and snapping trees. After crossing Happy Camp Road, it destroyed outbuildings and began a brief jog northward, paralleling North 180 Rd. This strongest and widest phase of the tornado occurred as it moved east along Grimes Road. One single-wide manufactured home was completely destroyed and several other single-family residences were heavily damaged with the loss of roofs and windows. Two fatalities and two injuries occurred at one homestead where a double-wide manufactured home was completely destroyed and several automobiles were moved and tossed 20–30 yards. A nearby barn was destroyed and heavy limb loss occurred on large trees. The tornado then continued northeast crossing State Highway 75, where it threw a metal shipping container across the lanes and uprooted trees. The tornado dissipated after crossing North 205 Road about three miles south of the Tulsa County line.

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

Severe thunderstorms developed into eastern Oklahoma during the late afternoon of the 6th, ahead of a surface dry line, and moved across the area through the evening hours. The atmosphere had become strongly unstable across eastern Oklahoma during the afternoon east of the dry line. This instability, combined with very strong low-level and deep-layer wind shear across the region, resulted in the evolution of several long-lived supercell thunderstorms. These supercells produced eleven tornadoes, a couple of which were strong and damaging, large hail up to quarter size, damaging wind gusts, and localized flash flooding.

This tornado began on the west side of Beggs, directly impacting the Beggs Public Schools campus. The High School and Middle School roof sustained significant damage, and the bus barn also suffered heavy damage to the roof and overhead doors. As it moved northeast, it crossed 15th Street, uprooting and snapping trees. After crossing Happy Camp Road, it destroyed outbuildings and began a brief jog northward, paralleling North 180 Road. This strongest and widest phase of the tornado occurred as it moved east along Grimes Road. One single-wide manufactured home was completely destroyed and several other single-family residences were heavily damaged with the loss of roofs and windows. Two fatalities and two injuries occurred at one homestead, where a double-wide manufactured home was completely destroyed and several automobiles were moved and tossed 20 to 30 yards. A nearby barn was destroyed and heavy limb loss occurred on large trees. The tornado then continued northeast, crossing Highway 75, where it threw a metal shipping container across the lanes and uprooted trees. The tornado dissipated after crossing North 205 Road, about three miles south of the Tulsa County line. Based on this damage, maximum estimated wind in the tornado was 135 to 145 mph. The tornado produced a tornadic debris signature from the KINX WSR-88D.

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.

24 minutes of warning. NWS TSA issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:53 UTC, 24 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:31 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:44 UTC and running to 04:00 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, 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 01:06 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 Tulsa radar (KINX), 62 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:15 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

15 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.