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Weather Stories of
Oklahoma
Significant Tornadoes and Tornado
Outbreaks
- The Snyder,
Oklahoma
Tornado - May 10, 1905. The
second
deadliest
Oklahoma
tornado.
- The
Blackwell, Oklahoma
Tornado - May 25,
1955. This
F5
tornado
killed 20 people
in and near Blackwell
during
the late evening of
May 25,
1955.
Another tornado that formed in northern Kay
County later that
evening would produce F5
damage in Kansas and kill 80
people at
Udall, Kansas,
making it
the deadliest Kansas
tornado.
- The
Woodward, Oklahoma
Tornado - April 9, 1947.
The
deadliest Oklahoma
tornado.
- The Red
River Tornado
Outbreak - April 10, 1979.
This
outbreak included
a
tornado which
devastated parts of Wichita Falls, Texas,
and was the most costly tornado
until the May 3, 1999
Bridge Creek/Moore/OKC
Area tornado.
- Oklahoma
City Area
Tornadoes of June 13, 1998 The
Oklahoma City
metropolitan area
had
not seen any tornadoes since October 1992
when a
supercell
thunderstorm dropped three tornadoes in
Canadian County and
four more
tornadoes
over the
northern Oklahoma City metro area.
- The October
4, 1998
Tornado Outbreak Twenty-eight
tornadoes occurred in
central and
eastern
Oklahoma, including an F2 tornado
which damaged parts of Moore. It
was the largest
autumnal outbreak of
tornadoes ever recorded in
Oklahoma.
- The May 3,
1999 Tornado
Outbreak This outbreak
included
nearly 60
tornadoes in
central Oklahoma. It was the
largest tornado
outbreak
ever
recorded in Oklahoma. The first F5 tornado
ever to hit a the
Oklahoma City metro area
killed 36 people and the damage
total
was estimated
at $1 billion.
Two F4 tornadoes also
ravaged parts of Kingfisher and
Logan
counties.
- The October
9, 2001
Outbreak Nineteen tornadoes hit
parts of western
Oklahoma. Three
F3
tornadoes occurred, including a tornado
that
damaged
the southern and eastern sections of
Cordell, Oklahoma.
- Oklahoma
City Area
Tornadoes of May 8, 2003 The
central United States
experienced
a
record-breaking week of tornadoes from May
4
through
May 10, 2003, when nearly 400
tornadoes
occurred in 19
states and
caused 42
deaths during the
seven days. Included in
this total were the
tornadoes
which hit the southern
Oklahoma City metropolitan area on May 8,
2003 including
an F4
tornado which tore through parts of
Moore,
Oklahoma City
and
Choctaw.
- Oklahoma
City Area
Tornadoes of May 9, 2003 Once day
after an F4 tornado
struck the
southern
Oklahoma City metropolitan area, a
single supercell thunderstorm
produced ten tornadoes in
central Oklahoma,
including one F3 and two F1 tornadoes
in the northern Oklahoma City
metropolitan area.
Other Weather
Related
Data
The oldest known weather
records in
Oklahoma began at Fort Gibson in
January
1824, in what is
now Muskogee
County. The
records included data on temperatures
and
rainy days, but not on precipitation amounts.
True
rainfall records did not
begin until
July 1836.
The
earliest records were kept not by any type
of weather
organization, but by the US Army Medical
Department. After
the
start of weather
record keeping by Fort
Gibson, other
forts soon began keeping their
own records.
Fort Towson,
now in Choctaw County
in
January 1833, Fort Arbuckle in 1850, Fort
Sill
in 1870,
Fort Supply in 1873, and Fort Reno in
1883.
January 7th, 1944, marks the
greatest
snowfall in Oklahoma City in any
calendar day. The 9
inches that fell
makes
it the single snowiest calendar day
in
Oklahoma City
history, even though higher
amounts have
occurred in a 24
hour
period that crosses
midnight.
After an early morning
low temperature of
7
below zero, the afternoon high on January
11th, back in
1918, warmed to just 2
above zero,
giving
Oklahoma City
its coldest high temperature
ever
recorded.
The record for Oklahoma
City's coldest
January temperature is now over
100
years old. On January
19th back in
1892, the
morning low temperature dropped to
11
degrees below
zero.
While January 1930 was the
coldest on
record in Oklahoma City, the
warmest
January on record
occurred in 1923.
Every
day in the month had above normal
temperatures. Overall, 16 of the
31 days had
afternoon
high temperatures at or
above 60 degrees, with three days
topping 70. The warmest temperature of
the
month came on
the
13th, when the
mercury soared to a balmy 72,
after a morning
low of 47.
The coldest temperature all month was only 24
degrees.
The warmest temperature ever
felt in the
month of January in Oklahoma
occurred on January 31st
1911. On
that afternoon,
temperatures over the area
soared
into the 80s at many locations. Oklahoma City
set its all
time January
high with a reading of 83. Temperatures were
even warmer
in western
Oklahoma,
where Weatherford and Cloud
Chief
topped out at 89
degrees.
February 1, 1905 was the
first of five
straight days with measurable
snowfall
in Oklahoma City.
This remains a
record
for Oklahoma City for consecutive days
with
measurable
snowfall.
February 13, 1905, the
coldest
temperature ever recorded in the state
of Oklahoma
occurred in
Vinita,
where the temperature plummeted to a
record 27
degrees
below
zero. This record would later be tied in the
city of
Watts in
January, 1930.
On February 19,
1954, a severe windstorm raced through
much of the Texas
and
Oklahoma
Panhandles and into southwest
Oklahoma. The
windstorm, packing
winds of 60 to 85 mph, began in
the
western parts of the
Oklahoma
Panhandle
shortly after
midnight. The storm then raced
to
the
southeast,
reaching
southwest
Oklahoma by afternoon. Considerable damage was
done
to small
buildings and pane windows. Power and
communication lines were
blown down
in many
communities
and several traffic accidents
occurred
in the
blinding
dust picked up
during
the storms rampage
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