Draft:List of Oklahoma tornadoes

This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by adding missing items with reliable sources.

A radar image of the 1999 Bridge Creek-Moore F5 tornado as it was passing over Moore, Oklahoma

The 2013 Moore tornado, the second F5/EF5-rated tornado to strike the city

The 2013 El Reno tornado churning over the fields of Oklahoma.

The state of Oklahoma has been hit by at least 4,200 tornadoes since 1950, including a tornado with the most powerful winds ever recorded on Earth, as well as the widest tornado on record.

Climatology

Oklahoma is a part of Tornado Alley, a region of the Great Plains where tornadoes occur with increased frequency. This is because warm, dry air from the Mexican Plateau and cold, dry air from Canada meets moist air from the Gulf of Mexico, creating a temperature inversion (or "cap", as some call it). The warm moist air attempts to rise, but the cap prevents it from doing so. If there are strong upper-level winds, they can erode the cap and break it, allowing the warm air to rise rapidly and spawn severe thunderstorms and supercells. There are other factors that contribute to the high number of tornadoes in Tornado Alley as well, such as the frequent formation of low-level jets caused by areas of high pressure over the eastern United States. All of these conditions come together most often during the spring and summer seasons, although they can occur at any time of the year.

Events

Pre-1950

• May 1896 - A series of deadly tornado outbreaks occurred from May 15-28. Oklahoma in particular saw an F2 in Bryan County, an F3 in Kay County that demolished a barn, a separate F2 also in Kay County that destroyed a separate barn, and an F3 near Hennessey that injured a person and destroyed a house.
• 1905 - On May 10, 1905, an F5 swept through Snyder, Oklahoma, killing 97. It is one of the most deadly individual tornadoes to ever strike the state of Oklahoma.
• April 20-22, 1912 - A multi-day tornado outbreak struck Oklahoma, Texas, the upper Midwest, and other places. Oklahoma saw an F4 that barely missed Oklahoma City to the north that killed one, an F3 near Arcadia, an F4 near Hennessey that killed four, an F4 near Perry that killed three and injured twelve, and finally an F3 by Orlando that injured fourteen.
• April 27-29, 1912 - Another tornado outbreak occurred just days after the April 20-22 outbreak, with the April 27-29 event mostly affecting Oklahoma. The tornadoes that hit the state on the 27th include an F4 that killed five people that started in Texas, an F2 in Jackson County near Warren, an F4 near Granite that killed seven, an F3 in Rocky that destroyed fifty houses and a school, an F2 in Corn that killed two, an F4 near Colony that killed two and injured fifteen, an F3 near Altus that injured one and destroyed twelve barns, an F3 in Hinton that killed at least three people, an F4 near Erick that killed two, an F4 in Foss that killed 6, an F3 in Choctaw County that killed one and injured three, an F2 in Granite, an F3 in Custer County that killed one, an F4 in Hobart that killed four and destroyed sixty buildings, and an F3 in Granite that killed one. April 28 was a bit calmer, with numerous F0-F2 tornadoes in places such as Crescent, Butler, Cashion, Hobart, Sallisaw, and Marble. The F2 in Crescent killed two, and the F2 in Marble killed two as well. Thomas Grazulis, a meteorologist and tornado historian, considers the April 27-29 outbreak to be among the worst outbreaks in Oklahoma history.
• May 25-June 1, 1917 - For eight days, a tornado outbreak occurred mostly in the Midwest and deep south. Oklahoma saw a few tornadoes during this event, especially an F4 that killed three outside of Marietta, with the tornado's parent storm damaging the town itself with a downburst. June 1st was the most active day for Oklahoma, with an F2 near Guthrie, an F2 near Sapulpa, an F2 near Drumright, an F3 that killed five near Sulphur, an F3 that injured twelve near Seminole, an F2 near Okmulgee that wiped out forty two oil derricks, and an F4 in Clarita that killed fourteen.
• April 9, 1919 - A small but deadly tornado outbreak occurred in the southern United States. Oklahoma received an F4 that killed eight and injured fifty, an F2 in Albany that killed one and injured three, an F3 near Roberta that killed at least nine and injured thirty five, an F2 in Armstrong, and finally a potential tornado family that dealt F3 damage near Bromide that killed one while injuring five.
• March 20 and March 25, 1948 - Tinker Air Force Base was hit twice in a row by two tornadoes estimated to be F3 strength. The meteorologists at the base noticed that conditions on the 25th were similar to conditions that spawned a tornado on the 20th, and they successfully issued the first known tornado forecast, which was verified when a tornado struck the base later that day.

1950-1959

• December 1-6, 1953 - An unusual off-season winter tornado outbreak occurred in the Deep South over the course of a week. Oklahoma in particular was hit by a pair of unusually large F1 tornadoes on December 2. The first of these two tornadoes touched down near Lone Grove and travelled along a 31 mile (50 kilometer) path towards Sulphur and Hickory. The tornado peaked at 880 yards (800 meters) in width, and was observed repeatedly lifting and touching down again, technically making it a tornado family. In Murray County, the tornado injured two people. The other F1 tornado directly struck the center of Shawnee along a 1.9 mile (2.4 kilometer) path, injuring one person and causing about $2,500 (approximately $25,000 USD in 2024 when adjusted for inflation) in damage.
• May 25-26, 1955 - A large tornado outbreak occurred in the great plains, with a total of 48 confirmed tornadoes. Oklahoma received numerous weak tornadoes in locations such as Altus and Shattuck, but it also saw several deadly tornadoes as well. The first of these tornadoes was an F4 that killed four people. It touched down in Aberdeen, Texas and carved a 50 mile (80 kilometer) path northeastward, killing 100 cows and dissipating somewhere in Roger Mills County, Oklahoma. The state also was hit by two deadly F5s that day. The first one touched down in rural Noble County, clipped the eastern part of the town of Tonkawa, then hit Blackwell at F5 intensity, killing twenty and injuring two hundred. Several eyewitnesses reported a visible blue light in the tornado's funnel known as St. Elmo's Fire. The second F5 of the day came from the same supercell responsible for the Blackwell F5, although this tornado did the vast majority of its damage over the state line in Kansas, where it killed eighty people.
• May 24-25, 1957 - Nearly every state in Tornado Alley saw severe weather during this multi-day outbreak. Oklahoma was hit by a few small EF0-EF2 tornadoes, but it also was hit by the biggest tornado of the outbreak, an F4 that touched down near Cookietown that was responsible for the deaths of four people, the injuries of five people, and about $250,000 USD of property damage.

1960-1969

• April 28-30, 1960 - A moderately-sized outbreak of nineteen tornadoes struck various states, although the Oklahoma City metropolitan area and the three counties it is a part of (Grady, Oklahoma, and Cleveland counties) took ten hits from F2 and F3 tornadoes over the course of the outbreak. The most violent of these ten was an F3 that hit the eastern side of Oklahoma City, injuring 57 and causing $2.5 million USD in damage.
• May 4-6, 1960 - 71 tornadoes touched down across the United States, with many of those being EF0-EF2s. On May 4, the first of two F4 tornadoes touched down near Konowa, and "swept away" a newly-constructed house. The second F4 of the day hit Soper and destroyed a third of the town. There may have been a tornado family, since there were reports of two destroyed farms near Snow. The next day, an F5 struck near Shawnee and killed five people along its 71.8 mile (115.6 kilometer) track. It was seen dissipating over Tulsa. There were two F4s on May 5th as well, the first striking Wilburton, killing sixteen, and the second striking Roland, killing five.
• May 14-31, 1962 - A drawn-out tornado outbreak over the latter half of the month of May was responsible for 188 tornadoes in 25 states. The most impactful tornado for Oklahoma occurred on May 25, an F4 responsible for nine injuries in and around Dill City. The tornado was noted to have a clear multivortex structure that then condensed into a standard funnel, according to eyewitness accounts. The second major Oklahoma tornado from this outbreak is an F4 that struck Randlett, and dissipated near Cookietown. This tornado injured one person and caused $250,000 in damage.