The Weather Notebook: 1999 Weather Review: Great Oklahoma Twisters

1999 Weather Review: Great Oklahoma Twisters
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Dave Thurlow, Host

Aerial photo of tornado track. Oklahoma Department of Civil Emergency Management.

On May 3 of this year, the south suburbs of Oklahoma City were assaulted by one of the strongest twisters ever to hit the Sooner State. This tornado ranked as an F5 on the Fujita Scale. That corresponds to winds of up to 300 mph. Only about one tornado in a thousand gets that strong, and this is the first time an F5 hit Oklahoma City.

Hi, I'm Dave Thurlow from the Mount Washington Observatory and this is The Weather Notebook.

The day started out bright and sunny, but by 5 p.m. the first tornado touched down in southwest Oklahoma. By midnight, there had been more than 60 twisters across the middle of the state, the most Oklahoma has ever seen in a single day. The one that hit Oklahoma City smashed all kinds of records to bits. It caused over one billion dollars in damage. And thanks to live TV footage from storm-chasing camera crews, this was one of the best-publicized tornadoes ever.

Even with all the publicity, 36 people died. Over a third of them were in mobile homes, which can be destroyed in winds just half as strong as this tornado's winds. Some people were caught on the road when the storm hit. And more than a dozen people were blown out from beneath highway overpasses, where they'd gone to seek shelter. Ironically, this may be one of the very worst places to be in a tornado, because winds can strengthen as they're forced under a bridge. Despite all the pain it caused, this day of tornadoes gave scientists a year's worth of data to analyze--a silver lining in the clouds that passed over the hard-hit states of Oklahoma and Kansas, on May 3rd, 1999.

Thanks to Bob Henson, today's contributing writer. The Weather Notebook is underwritten by Subaru and the National Science Foundation.