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Tornado, Severe T-Storm, Hail Updates Here

Okiedawn OK Zone 7
12 years ago

Severe thunderstorms have been firing up along and east of the I-35 corridor. I'll post further updates here and hope any of you who have anything to report will do so as well.

Currently, storms extend from the KS/OK border, with a tornado warning in Osage County, all the way down to just north of the TX/OK border, where a severe T-storm with large hail has moved across the Red River and into Carter County. There is a Tornado Warning for Carter County and eastward.

Here in our county, the fire/EMS pagers are going crazy as tornado sirens sound and storm spotters here are tracking the Carter County storm. Carol, This storm is not near your relatives. It is getting close to Dickson at this time.

See the storms on the radar here.

Here is a link that might be useful: Radar

Comments (29)

  • Okiedawn OK Zone 7
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    The tornado reported in the Tishomingo area is now in the are, but not on the ground, south of Milburn. It continues to produce large hail. This storm is tracking towards Caney if any of you are in that area. Repeat, though, it is in the air and not on the ground. The storm chaser is reporting RFD winds to 70 mph and is warning of damaging straight line winds near Emmitt and Nida (I don't know if I am spelling those right).

    I can't see what's happening in NE OK, but this is what is occurring in SE OK.

    Here is a link that might be useful: Norman Webpage

  • Okiedawn OK Zone 7
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    Tornadoes continue to plague southeastern and eastern OK. The current threat is from a tornado south of Sulphur, another near Gerty, and another near Atoka and Tuska.

    Here is a link that might be useful: Latest Tornado Info on Norman NWS Website

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  • greenacreslady
    12 years ago

    Channel 9 in Oklahoma City is reporting damage in Atoka from a tornado.

    Suzie

  • owiebrain
    12 years ago

    You guys stay safe!

    Link below for storm reports.

    Here is a link that might be useful: storm reports

  • Okiedawn OK Zone 7
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    Sazie, That is what I am hearing from local media. However, a lot of their reports are being sent by viewers via email or phone call to KXII-TV, the CBS affiliate in the Ardmore-Sherman-Gainesville area, so they are considered "unconfirmed" although we have no reason to doubt that they are true. We are hearing the words "death" (only one confirmed so far) and "total devastation in Tushka near Atoka". Unconfirmed bystander reports indicat Wal-Mart lost its roof, power lines are down, some homes destroyed and others damaged, one school flattened and "total chaos". It sounds very, very bad there. Surrounding counties have rushed emergency personnel there to help the Atoka county folks.

    Are y'all OK up there?

    The storms on the radar here just keep rolling out one after another after another. SE OK is taking a very severe beating and my thoughts and prayers go to everyone in Atoka County and elsewhere that have seen severe storms. Another storm is hitting Atoka now and they are being told to seek shelter now.

    Dawn

    Here is a link that might be useful: Storm radar from SE OK

  • soonergrandmom
    12 years ago

    Well it isn't over here, but I think the largest danger has past. Again I had to take my transplants inside and it's 63 degrees. This time it was the threat of high winds and large hail. I managed to get a flower pot and a brick over 20 of the tomato plants in the garden, but we didn't get hail. The wind was pretty high, but not like it was in some places. After I covered them all, I thought it was a little stupid since any of them could have been replaced, but the other things out there could not be (like 400 or so onion plants).

    It was close enough and scary enough that we had 3 families in the shelter. When they are saying it is just a few miles away, it is just best to take cover.

    So far all I have to report is about one/third inch of rain and a lot of thunder. It may change by morning tho.

  • greenacreslady
    12 years ago

    Dawn,
    The storms formed just east of us, and I could see the thunderheads building this afternoon. As I was out running errands about 4:00 a NWS tornado warning alert for Payne and Lincoln counties sounded on the car radio. That was around the time everything was firing up. There was no rain here, just strong winds all day, first from the south, then the west, then the north, and then complete calm around dusk. The 10:00 news reported pretty much the same thing you said about Atoka. Their news crew down there couldn't get close to the site, so no footage. Gary England said it sounded like it was "a huge tornado." That is so sad.

    Soonergrandmom,
    I'm completely with you on just going ahead and taking cover when they say it's just a few miles away. We spent an hour in the shelter last year with 4 adults, 2 teenagers, 2 children, 1 baby, and 2 dogs because the storms kept forming just west of us and moving toward us, but then going around us (thank goodness). It takes a while just to get everyone in there!

    Sure do hope all of our gardening friends and their families are okay tonight.

    Suzie

  • maubles
    12 years ago

    Everything around Atoka and Tushka sounds horrible.

    Fortunately, nothing but rain and strong straight line winds here at the house, but there was radar indicated rotation all around. The photo linked was taken just to our south, they are still waiting for the NWS to confirm if it was an actual tornado. They are also waiting for daylight to assess all the damage. Reports last night of RVs blown off a dealer lot and out onto the highway, mobile homes blown over, and several trees down. More damage reports are trickling in this morning.

    My thought and prayers are with everyone affected by last nights storms.

    Michelle

    Here is a link that might be useful: Possible Tornado

  • Okiedawn OK Zone 7
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    The damage I've seen on TV from Tushka looks like it probably was caused by an F-3, but I'm no expert. I just know it looks as bad in places as Lone Grove did a couple of years ago.

    We had quite a scare at the northern end of Love County last night. Local storm spotters reported a tornado in the air over the Greenville/Overbrook area south of Lake Murray. It was pretty crazy for a few minutes with numerous reports being made over the fire/EMS radios. At about that same time, the nearby town of Ardmore in Carter County began sounding the tornado sirens, likely because of their citizens viewing the same funnel cloud seen from northern Love County. That storm rolled east as we watched it on KXII-TV's live, wall-to-wall coverage and hit Tushka.

    There are numerous reports of hail from the general area of southcentral, southeastern and eastern OK. Some golfball sized hail was reported south of us in Love County, but it missed our property. Last night there were numerous reports of hail in all sizes in this part of the state, and in a few select locations it was described as being the size of tennis balls, baseballs and grapefruit.

    So much was going on here that our local TV station went with Live coverage from shortly after 4 p.m. until 9 p.m. When they attempted to return to regularly scheduled programming at 9 p.m., the weather kept flaring up and they had to keep cutting away to the meteorologist's reports again and again.

    Most of the rain went east of us, but we received about 1/10th of an inch at our house during the time it was raining harder and hailing a couple of miles south of us.

    My thoughts and prayers go out to everyone affected by last night's storms as well.

    Dawn

  • owiebrain
    12 years ago

    Does anyone have news of LeFlore County? I've not heard from a few friends but others have said that there was a tornado through Wister, Howe, and heading towards Gilmore and Poteau. Nothing showing on storm reports about it but there never was when I lived there, even when I knew there to be tornadoes. It seems there are rarely any official reports made from the area. Poteau newspaper still has yesterday's news up.

    I'm worried about some friends that don't have internet and phone. They'd have been right in the path in a flimsy old house.

    Diane

  • Okiedawn OK Zone 7
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    Diane,

    Late last night there were two tornadoes in LeFlore County. I thought of you when I saw them on the news. One was near Poteau headed towards Arkansas and the other was closer to Wister and headed towards Arkansas. I heard homes were damaged near either Howe or Wister, but haven't heard more since then.

    Oh, gotta go...house fire in town in 40 mph plus wins. Crap!

    Dawn

  • Okiedawn OK Zone 7
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    Diane,

    I'm back and can finish what I was posting as the house fire was only a small electrical fire and not a full-fledged, fully-engulfed structure fire. Whew!

    There were reports of a tornado near Howe flipping over at least one mobile home last night. That was between 9:30 and 10 p.m. and I haven't heard an update this morning---likely because most of the media coverage is focused on the damage in Tushka.

    I googled and found a little bit of news from an Arkansas news station and have linked it below. That news station probably will update their LeFlore County news after the mid-day news show is over.

    Dawn

    Here is a link that might be useful: Tornado Damage in Howe

  • owiebrain
    12 years ago

    Thanks, Dawn. I had just found that very link and came back here to let you know but you had beat me to it. :-)

    Just a few minutes ago, hubby managed to reach the unconnected people I was concerned about and they're fine, thankfully. They had gone over to a neighbor's to hide in their storm shelter only to find the people had moved out unannounced and the shelter was locked. So they scurried on to their daughter's and were safe. I'm not sure of any damages but they're very, very close to the storm's path.

    Many other friends in the immediate area, too, but I've now heard from all of them. Whew. And Ilene posted to her blog this morning that, although they had a close call, they're in one piece.

    Between the drought and now these storms going right over our old place, I'm that much more happy for the timing of our move. Similar things have happened the last couple of times we moved. It's getting kind of creepy. LOL

    Anyone seen busy and Larry check in yet? Any other members I need to add to my worry list?

    Diane

  • oldbusy1
    12 years ago

    I'm here, missed the worst of it. Parents house suffered some damage and lost a lot of trees. hey had some trees on some old vehicles parked out back.their neighbor lost a barn.

    Electric was out all night and morning, phone is out at home also. Lost computer and microwave.

    From what i can tell it does look like a tornado went west of talihina by the looks of the trees scattered in all directions.

    I dont know about the surounding areas.Will check in when i can.

  • soonergrandmom
    12 years ago

    Will this wind never end? It is plenty windy here in Grove but is far less than what I am seeing on Mesonet for many of you. When I first got up this morning I thought I would go uncover the tomato plants, but after walking outside on two different occasions, I decided they would suffer less from a day without sunlight than they would suffer with a day of this gusty wind, so I just left them. There is no sunshine today anyway.

    My rainfall always seems to be different from my county's Mesonet station, so when I checked today my station had .49 but the county north of me had 1.54. My rain guage said we got about 9/10 inch, so that's a nice rainfall. I notice we have a 50% chance of more showers today, so I am glad that I have planted as many things as I have although I know I am pushing the season on some.

    Do any of you grow Rocket, and is it worth growing?

  • okiehobo
    12 years ago

    Last night was certainly eventful here in eastern Pittsburgh county.

    Had some huge lightning, and very strong wind gust, Sirens where going of in town and there was one tornado sighted in the air, but thankfully it did not touch down.

    We received 1 & 1/4 inches of rain and some light hail.
    Today the wind is blowing hard and its very cool, what next?

    We are so sorry for,and are praying for those people in Tushka, and other areas that had it so bad.
    James

  • seedmama
    12 years ago

    Best wishes and prayers for all. I used to ask what next, but I kept getting answers, so I quit asking. Where does it all end? If somebody sees signs of Larry, ask him to check in over here. Busy and James, I'm glad you are okay.

    Soonergrandmom,

    I grew Rocket in a mix last year. Loved it so much I bought seeds just for it. It's a really cool weather crop. In fact, it was one of our winter greens and it is bolting and flowering now. I won't start my new seeds until fall.

    Some of the leaves are spicy like mustard greens; all of the leaves have a rich earthy undertone of flavor. I say thumbs up!

  • soonergrandmom
    12 years ago

    Thanks seedmama. I had two packs of seed and decided to try a few to see what it was like. I had read sour, peppery, once I read bitter. Those are 3 different tastes so I didn't know what to expect. I just planted a few seeds in a cup and they came up in two days. Guess I will save the rest for fall. It came in that grab bag of herbs I bought last fall from TM.

  • Okiedawn OK Zone 7
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    I'm relieved to see Busy1 and James have checked in and am glad y'all don't have any worse news to report. Any time storms are that close to a person, it is such a relief to only have minor damage.

    Doesn't Snowbishop live in SE OK? We haven't heard from him. I don't know how often he visits the forum these days though.

    I saw a post from Larry on a thread this morning, but can't remember if his comment was from this morning or last night.

    We have crazy wind here, and our VFD has had two fires, both minor, which is surprising in this wind. Sometimes you just get lucky and fires get stopped before they blow up and get big. All of Texas is burning and evacuating. They're now well over a half-million acres burned in the last week.

    I tried (it seems laughable that I even attempted this) to put my seedlings out in a so-called sheltered location to get some sunlight. When our wind gusted to 54 mph, I gave up and brought all the flats inside. All of them. Our forecast has dropped to 33 for tonight and between that and the wind, I'm not leaving stuff out in the garage or on the sunporch overnight.

    I'm afraid to look ahead and see if tomorrow's forecast has changed, because the forecast for us for tomorrow looked so good this morning and if that has changed, I don't want to know it.

    We are having crazy wind here, but since our Mesonet station has been knocked offline, I don't know how crazy it is. Apparently whatever peaches and plums had survived the three freezes we've had since they formed are now "gone with the wind". I see small fruit on the ground everywhere, along with clumps of leaves and small limbs.

    We've had a couple of power poles snap, some limited and brief power outages, some trees in the road, etc. but all in all we are in pretty good shape considering the wind.

    Wow! Pagers going off here now asking for Oklahoma firefighters from the west end of our county to cross the Red River and assist with a fire in Clay County. Poor Texas. This is a horrifically disastrous day for them. I need to check and see where Clay County is, because it is Cooke County and Montague County that are directly across the river from Love County. I think Clay County is out to our NW by Wichita Falls.

    If you're not burning up or blowing away right now, count your blessings!

    Dawn

  • Okiedawn OK Zone 7
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    Another western Love County VFD has been paged to assist with the wildfire near Henrietta, TX, in Clay County. Clay County is the next county west of Montague County.

  • soonergrandmom
    12 years ago

    Dawn - None of the weather sites seem to be staying up 100 percent of the time and just go in and out. Mesonets last reading for your station was Gust to 37 at 5:15 PM.

  • greenacreslady
    12 years ago

    The news reported that sadly one firefighter perished in Texas today. They showed satellite pictures that show the fires as large black spots and the Texas fires, especially the one closest to Dallas/Ft Worth, are huge.

    Suzie

  • Okiedawn OK Zone 7
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    Suzie,

    It is a sad story about the firefighter. They haven't released a lot of details, but I think he was involved in a fire truck burnover, which is when a wind-driven wildfire overtakes a firetruck and literally burns right over it/through it/around it. My husband and our Asst. Chief survived one of those a couple of years ago and it happened while I was watching. The only "good" thing about it was that the fire moved so fast that by the time it registered in my brain that fire had overtaken his truck, he'd driven out of the fire safely and the fire was running towards the interstate and he turned and 'chased' it from behind. I hope to never see anything like that again.

    The big fire west of Fort Worth is near Possum Kingdom Lake in very rough and rugged terrain. The last I heard, about 30 homes there had burned and over 200 more were at risk and had been evacuated. Possum Kingdom State Park had been closed, and some roads were closed.

    There's also a huge complex of fires in the Wichita Falls area that involves at least 3 separate very large, major wildfires. Homes have burned there and evacuations have occurred. Some Love County firefighters are in the county next to Wichita Falls helping fight a different fire complex near Henrietta, TX.

    Before today's fires, Texas had had about a half-million acres burn just in the last 7 or 8 days. There's no telling what that number will be after they total up all the acreage today.

    Our VFD only had two brief fire calls today so I consider us very fortuante indeed because it could have been so much worse. Our county's burn ban expires next week and I hope the commissioners renew it (though I don't think they will because burn bans are very unpopular with some of their constituents).

    Carol, Our mesonet station goes out every time the wind gusts over 20 mph. It is out even when no one else's stations are malfunctioning. It drives me up the wall.

    Our wind was like a ocean today....choppy and full of big waves interspersed with periods of calm. As sundown approached, it seemed to calm down a lot...then began gusting really hard again. It can't seem to make up its mind what to do.

    The little wildlife puddle in our driveway had little choppy whitecaps. The birds bathed in it anyway. There was a big wreck on I35 in Gainesville this afternoon caused by the wind blowing tractor-trailer trucks around. Gainesville's highest recorded gust was 53 and ours was 54. Our weather is very similar to theirs, so when the Burneyville mesonet station malfunctions, I just check the station at the Gainesville Airport.

    I'm watching the 10 p.m. newscast and Steve LaNore just said we'll have near-record lows here tonight. Oh good, just what we needed.

    Also, he said the wind returns Sunday, so I'll try to get a lot done tomorrow in case Sunday's weather is yucky.

    Dawn

  • soonergrandmom
    12 years ago

    Dawn, I typed that message earlier to say that your station had gusts of 37 at the time and just as I hit the send button it went to 40.

    I have been amazed by the amount of wind we have had because this is unusual. Sometimes I can hear the wind blowing and look up and see it in the tree tops when I am not feeling it at ground level. That could be because of the ridge we live on, but I'm not sure. Anyway, this wind has not been like that at all, it just whips and roars and keeps on keeping on. LOL In fact, my 10 day forecast is easy it either shows 'Breezy' or 'Rain' for everyday.

    Our Mesonet station doesn't seem to be dependable either and many times will just be blank for one of the readings, then later in the day it will get filled in. I don't think our rainfall gets recorded a lot of the time either, but then maybe they really aren't getting rain when we are. During today's rain we had light rain for hours and my gauge already had over a quarter of an inch and they hadn't recorded a drop. Then I noticed the reading was just not there at all for awhile and next time I looked it had jumped up considerably, so I don't think it is reliable. However, I do know from living in Grove and working in Jay, that the weather is frequently very different and the mesonet is between the two towns.

  • maubles
    12 years ago

    NWS was in LeFlore, Latimer and Pushmataha counties yesterday and confirmed 2 EF1 tornadoes just south of Poteau in Leflore county and 1 EF1 in Latimer county. Local news reports say the NWS is investigating 19 possible tornadoes across E. OK and NW. AR. They have also found quite a bit of straight line wind damage.
    Something I found interesting is one of the LeFlore county tornadoes was a rare anti-cyclonic (clockwise rotating) tornado. Apparently, only about 1 in 1000 tornadoes rotate clockwise. This is the first on I can remember being reported, so It gave me some good reading material on a cool windy Friday. =)

    Michelle

  • owiebrain
    12 years ago

    Michelle, I read the same thing last night about the anticyclonic. Very interesting. However, i read there were three confirmed tornadoes in LeFlore County, the third being near Talihina.

    We had storms blow through here yesterday. Nothing, of course, like what you guys had but it hailed dime-to-quarter size hail for about 20 minutes. It kept going and going and my poor tomato seedlings were sitting out in their trays on the front walk because I wasn't expecting anything but rain. Took some damage but not terribly bad and we all know how resilient tomato seedlings are.

    And now it's too mucky to work out in the garden today.

    Diane

  • owiebrain
    12 years ago

    Forgot to mention that there was a tornado down around the Stark Bros nursery during our storms yesterday, about an hour south of us. Just a little one and I've not heard of any specific damage to Stark Bros, thankfully.

    Diane

  • Okiedawn OK Zone 7
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    Have y'all seen the video footage of the Tushka tornado that shows the multiple smaller vortices rotating around the parent? The Weather Channel showed a good animation explaining it this morning and I bet they'll run it throughout the day.

    Diane, Well, it sucks that it is too mucky for you to work in the garden today. It is so frustrating when that happens. I'm glad your little toms made it through the hail with only minor damage. The ones I have in the ground were hailed upon last week, but the hail was small and there was no damage at all to the plants.

    I hope Stark Bros. made it through without damage.

    Dawn

  • greenacreslady
    12 years ago

    Dawn,
    Just reading that description of your husband's experience in the burnover gave me goosebumps, and to think that you were watching! I have a theory that if people were paid according to their value to society, then firefighters, policemen, nurses, and teachers would be the highest paid and attorneys would be at the bottom (apologies to any attorneys out there). And volunteer firefighters are at the very top.

    We've had such a busy weekend that I haven't had much time to pay attention to the news. The wind here was so horrible today that I'm sure the fire situation must still be very bad in Texas. We were at our granddaughter's softball game today and at times the air was so full of blowing dirt that the girls had to literally turn their backs and stand until it settled down enough to play again.

    Suzie

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