The Severe Weather and Tornado Outbreak of February 26, 2023

A potent, late February storm system produced an outbreak of tornadoes and other severe weather across Oklahoma and western north Texas during the late afternoon and evening hours of Sunday, February 26, 2023. In addition to the 12 tornadoes that occurred in our county warning area (CWA), hail up to the size of golf balls and straight-line wind gusts up to 86 mph were observed during this event. Teams from the National Weather Service (NWS) Norman Weather Forecast Office (WFO) conducted damage path surveys in central Oklahoma on February 27, 2023 and confirmed 7 tornadoes (3 EF-1, 2 EF-2, and 2 EF-0 tornadoes) in the area.  More surveys were conducted in western Oklahoma on February 28-March 1, 2023. Sadly, this severe weather event resulted in approximately 60 injuries and the tornado that struck Cheyenne resulted in 1 fatality.

The total number of tornadoes documented from the February 26th event is the greatest total of tornadoes to occur in Oklahoma during the month of February since officials records began in 1950. The previous record was 6 tornadoes, which occurred in February of 1975 and 2009.

In the days leading up to this severe weather event, numerical weather prediction models demonstrated overall agreement and consistently suggested the potential for severe weather. As such, there was a relatively long lead time for alerting the public and the SPC began issuing Convective Outlooks on February 21st, 5 days beforehand.

The morning of the event, a closed upper low pressure system was located over southern Nevada. During the day on Sunday, this upper trough advanced eastward. By that evening, this system reached northern New Mexico which placed the southern plains under an area of strong dynamic lift which aided in the development and persistence of numerous severe thunderstorms that evening.

The approach of the strong upper-level trough prompted the rapid deepening of the surface low pressure system. During the day, the warm front lifted northward into Oklahoma ahead of the approaching Pacific cold front. There had been uncertainty in the forecast on whether surface dewpoint temperatures would increase sufficiently for severe weather. As it turns out, this moisture advected rapidly and reached our area just in time (before the upper low reached our region).

Weather balloons are launched routinely, twice a day, at 92 of the 122 WFOs across the country. A radiosonde that houses multiple sensors is attached to the balloon (along with a parachute) and samples the atmosphere as the balloon rises before eventually popping. One-second data (i.e., temperature, dewpoint temperature, and wind at successive heights above the ground) is transmitted to the NWS meteorologist's computer and automatically plotted on SKEW-T diagrams. As you can from the soundings in the slideshow below, upper air soundings display a vertical profile of the atmosphere and provide important details on the severe weather environment, which help meteorologists understand what is happening at that time.

Occasionally, a special release is conducted within a few hours of storm development or arrival. On this day at 8:30PM, a NWS Norman forecaster launched a special balloon as the line of severe thunderstorms entered central Oklahoma.

Shown here are the Area Forecast Discussions (AFDs) from the NWS Norman forecasters on the midnight and day shifts on Sunday, February 26th. On the right, is the Mesoscale Discussion issued by the SPC that evening.

Here is a collection of messaging products issued by the NWS Norman office prior to and during the event.

Supercells with a history of producing tornadoes exited the Texas panhandle and into western Oklahoma after 7PM. Below is the KFDR radar imagery of the Cheyenne (EF2), Erick (EF1), and Vinson (EF0) tornadoes:

As the line of storms progressed eastward, a tornado developed in northern Oklahoma, near Amorita (left). Another tornado formed over west-central Oklahoma, near Gracemont (right). Both produced EF0 damage.

KTLX radar imagery of the Minco (EF0), Tuttle (EF1), and western Oklahoma City (EF1) tornadoes:

KTLX Radar of the Goldsby-Norman tornado that produced up to EF2 damage:

Following the damaging tornado in Norman, two other tornadoes were produced in short order: one near Dale and one near Meeker.

Below is an interactive GIS map containing the tornado paths and damage points. Clicking on a damage point will open a window and show information (including photos) pertaining to that area of damage.