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2013 Moore tornado
The 2013 Moore tornado was a large and extremely violent EF5 tornado that ravaged Moore, Oklahoma, and adjacent areas on the afternoon of May 20, 2013, with peak winds estimated at 200–210 miles per hour (320–340 km/h), killing 24 people (plus two indirect fatalities) and injuring 212 others. The tornado was part of a larger outbreak from a slow-moving weather system that had produced several other tornadoes across the Great Plains over the previous two days, including five that had struck portions of Central Oklahoma the day prior on May 19.
The tornado touched down just northwest of Newcastle at 2:56 p.m. CDT (19:56 UTC), and quickly became violent, persisting for 39 minutes on a 13.85-mile (22.3 km) path through a heavily populated section of Moore, causing catastrophic damage of EF4 to EF5 intensity, before dissipating at 3:35 p.m. CDT (20:35 UTC) outside of Moore. The tornado was over one mile (1.6 km) across at its peak width. The 2013 Moore tornado followed a roughly similar track to the deadlier 1999 Bridge Creek–Moore tornado, which was rated F5; neither of the stricken schools in the area had acquired purpose-built storm shelters in the intervening years.
The tornado caused catastrophic damage around the city of Moore, with 1,150 homes destroyed as a result. Damage estimates ranged up to $2 billion, making it the costliest tornado since the Joplin EF5 tornado in 2011. Taking a path through the heart of Moore, an estimated 13,500 people were directly affected by the tornado. Large swaths of the city were completely destroyed and unofficial estimates placed the number of severely damaged or destroyed buildings at 1,500 with another 4,000 affected. In contrast to the violent nature of the tornado, the death toll was relatively low. The tornado was ranked as the ninth-deadliest tornado in the state's history. The lack of further fatalities was attributed to a 16-minute lead time on the Moore tornado given by the National Weather Service forecast office in Norman. Following the tornado, President Barack Obama declared a major disaster in Moore, ordering federal aid to the city, allowing recovery efforts to begin. The city would later adapt stronger building codes in response to the tornado, stricter than what is usually required in the United States. This was the most recent tornado to be rated EF5 until the 2025 Enderlin tornado in North Dakota, with a record EF5 drought of 12 years and one month in between such tornadoes. It is also the most recent F5/EF5 tornado to occur in the state of Oklahoma.
On May 20, 2013, a prominent central upper trough moved eastward toward the Central United States, with a lead upper low pivoting over the Dakotas and Upper Midwest region. A Southern stream shortwave trough and a moderately strong polar jet moved east northeastward over the southern Rockies to the southern Great Plains and Ozarks area, with severe thunderstorms forming during the peak time of heating. With the influence of moderately strong cyclonic flow aloft, the air mass was expected to become unstable across much of the southern Great Plains, Ozarks, and middle Mississippi Valley by the afternoon. Evidence of an unstable air mass included temperatures in the low to mid 80s °F (27–30 °C), dewpoints that ranged in the upper 60s °F (20 °C) to the lower 70s °F (20–22 °C), and CAPE values ranging from 3500 to 5000 J/kg. Deep-layer wind shear speeds of 40 to 50 knots (46 to 58 mph) enhanced storm structure and intensity.
These were present ahead of a cold front extending from a surface low in the eastern Dakotas, southwestward to near the Kansas City area and western Oklahoma, and ahead of a dry line extending from southwest Oklahoma southward into northwestern and west-central Texas. Outflow remnants from the previous night and the early day convection across the Ozarks and the middle Mississippi Valley were a factor in severe weather development with the most aggressive heating and destabilization on the western edge of this activity across the southern Great Plains and just ahead of a cold front. The National Weather Service office in Norman, Oklahoma had warned as early as May 15 that there would be a possibility of severe weather on May 20.
The most intense severe weather activity was expected to come across the southern Great Plains, specifically Central Oklahoma, during the afternoon on that Monday. As such, the Storm Prediction Center issued a moderate risk of severe thunderstorms during the early morning of May 20 from southeastern Missouri to north-central Texas. The degree of wind shear, moisture, and instability within the warm sector favored the development of supercells. Very large hail and tornadoes were both expected with these supercells, with the possibility of a few strong tornadoes. The Storm Prediction Center issued a tornado watch at 1:10 p.m. Central Daylight Time (CDT) early that afternoon for the eastern two-thirds of Oklahoma, northwestern Arkansas, and portions of north-central Texas. Given the atmospheric parameters thought to be in place at the time, the Storm Prediction Center inadvertently underestimated the threat of tornadic activity that afternoon; the probability table for the tornado watch – the 191st severe weather watch issued by the guidance center in 2013 – indicated a 40% (or "moderate") probability of two or more tornadoes and a 20% (or "low") probability of one or more tornadoes reaching between EF2 and EF5 intensity within the watch area. The watch did, however, say that "one or two strong tornadoes" were possible.
The thunderstorm that eventually produced the tornado developed less than one hour after the tornado watch was issued, around 2:00 p.m. CDT, across northern Grady County. Its rapid intensification resulted in the National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office in Norman issuing a severe thunderstorm warning for northern Grady, northwestern Cleveland, northern McClain, and southwestern Oklahoma Counties (including southwestern portions of the immediate Oklahoma City area) at 2:12 p.m. CDT. The thunderstorm quickly attained supercell characteristics, with rotation at the mid-levels of the storm's cloud structure becoming apparent even before it was officially classified as severe, due to the sufficient amounts of wind shear present over central Oklahoma.
Due to the expected intensity of the storms, three of the Oklahoma City market's five television news outlets − NBC affiliate KFOR-TV (channel 4), ABC affiliate KOCO-TV (channel 5) and CBS affiliate KWTV (channel 9) − suspended normal programming and went into wall-to-wall weather coverage immediately after the tornado watch went into effect. Fox affiliate KOKH-TV (channel 25) and Telemundo affiliate KTUZ-TV (channel 30) began their coverage as the first severe thunderstorms erupted southwest of the state capital and subsequently began relaying their audio feeds to radio stations throughout central Oklahoma. As the forecast suggested that the most significant severe weather would occur in the mid-afternoon, around the time classes concluded for the day, many worried parents began arriving at schools throughout Moore and south Oklahoma City to pick up their children in advance of the storms.
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2013 Moore tornado
The 2013 Moore tornado was a large and extremely violent EF5 tornado that ravaged Moore, Oklahoma, and adjacent areas on the afternoon of May 20, 2013, with peak winds estimated at 200–210 miles per hour (320–340 km/h), killing 24 people (plus two indirect fatalities) and injuring 212 others. The tornado was part of a larger outbreak from a slow-moving weather system that had produced several other tornadoes across the Great Plains over the previous two days, including five that had struck portions of Central Oklahoma the day prior on May 19.
The tornado touched down just northwest of Newcastle at 2:56 p.m. CDT (19:56 UTC), and quickly became violent, persisting for 39 minutes on a 13.85-mile (22.3 km) path through a heavily populated section of Moore, causing catastrophic damage of EF4 to EF5 intensity, before dissipating at 3:35 p.m. CDT (20:35 UTC) outside of Moore. The tornado was over one mile (1.6 km) across at its peak width. The 2013 Moore tornado followed a roughly similar track to the deadlier 1999 Bridge Creek–Moore tornado, which was rated F5; neither of the stricken schools in the area had acquired purpose-built storm shelters in the intervening years.
The tornado caused catastrophic damage around the city of Moore, with 1,150 homes destroyed as a result. Damage estimates ranged up to $2 billion, making it the costliest tornado since the Joplin EF5 tornado in 2011. Taking a path through the heart of Moore, an estimated 13,500 people were directly affected by the tornado. Large swaths of the city were completely destroyed and unofficial estimates placed the number of severely damaged or destroyed buildings at 1,500 with another 4,000 affected. In contrast to the violent nature of the tornado, the death toll was relatively low. The tornado was ranked as the ninth-deadliest tornado in the state's history. The lack of further fatalities was attributed to a 16-minute lead time on the Moore tornado given by the National Weather Service forecast office in Norman. Following the tornado, President Barack Obama declared a major disaster in Moore, ordering federal aid to the city, allowing recovery efforts to begin. The city would later adapt stronger building codes in response to the tornado, stricter than what is usually required in the United States. This was the most recent tornado to be rated EF5 until the 2025 Enderlin tornado in North Dakota, with a record EF5 drought of 12 years and one month in between such tornadoes. It is also the most recent F5/EF5 tornado to occur in the state of Oklahoma.
On May 20, 2013, a prominent central upper trough moved eastward toward the Central United States, with a lead upper low pivoting over the Dakotas and Upper Midwest region. A Southern stream shortwave trough and a moderately strong polar jet moved east northeastward over the southern Rockies to the southern Great Plains and Ozarks area, with severe thunderstorms forming during the peak time of heating. With the influence of moderately strong cyclonic flow aloft, the air mass was expected to become unstable across much of the southern Great Plains, Ozarks, and middle Mississippi Valley by the afternoon. Evidence of an unstable air mass included temperatures in the low to mid 80s °F (27–30 °C), dewpoints that ranged in the upper 60s °F (20 °C) to the lower 70s °F (20–22 °C), and CAPE values ranging from 3500 to 5000 J/kg. Deep-layer wind shear speeds of 40 to 50 knots (46 to 58 mph) enhanced storm structure and intensity.
These were present ahead of a cold front extending from a surface low in the eastern Dakotas, southwestward to near the Kansas City area and western Oklahoma, and ahead of a dry line extending from southwest Oklahoma southward into northwestern and west-central Texas. Outflow remnants from the previous night and the early day convection across the Ozarks and the middle Mississippi Valley were a factor in severe weather development with the most aggressive heating and destabilization on the western edge of this activity across the southern Great Plains and just ahead of a cold front. The National Weather Service office in Norman, Oklahoma had warned as early as May 15 that there would be a possibility of severe weather on May 20.
The most intense severe weather activity was expected to come across the southern Great Plains, specifically Central Oklahoma, during the afternoon on that Monday. As such, the Storm Prediction Center issued a moderate risk of severe thunderstorms during the early morning of May 20 from southeastern Missouri to north-central Texas. The degree of wind shear, moisture, and instability within the warm sector favored the development of supercells. Very large hail and tornadoes were both expected with these supercells, with the possibility of a few strong tornadoes. The Storm Prediction Center issued a tornado watch at 1:10 p.m. Central Daylight Time (CDT) early that afternoon for the eastern two-thirds of Oklahoma, northwestern Arkansas, and portions of north-central Texas. Given the atmospheric parameters thought to be in place at the time, the Storm Prediction Center inadvertently underestimated the threat of tornadic activity that afternoon; the probability table for the tornado watch – the 191st severe weather watch issued by the guidance center in 2013 – indicated a 40% (or "moderate") probability of two or more tornadoes and a 20% (or "low") probability of one or more tornadoes reaching between EF2 and EF5 intensity within the watch area. The watch did, however, say that "one or two strong tornadoes" were possible.
The thunderstorm that eventually produced the tornado developed less than one hour after the tornado watch was issued, around 2:00 p.m. CDT, across northern Grady County. Its rapid intensification resulted in the National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office in Norman issuing a severe thunderstorm warning for northern Grady, northwestern Cleveland, northern McClain, and southwestern Oklahoma Counties (including southwestern portions of the immediate Oklahoma City area) at 2:12 p.m. CDT. The thunderstorm quickly attained supercell characteristics, with rotation at the mid-levels of the storm's cloud structure becoming apparent even before it was officially classified as severe, due to the sufficient amounts of wind shear present over central Oklahoma.
Due to the expected intensity of the storms, three of the Oklahoma City market's five television news outlets − NBC affiliate KFOR-TV (channel 4), ABC affiliate KOCO-TV (channel 5) and CBS affiliate KWTV (channel 9) − suspended normal programming and went into wall-to-wall weather coverage immediately after the tornado watch went into effect. Fox affiliate KOKH-TV (channel 25) and Telemundo affiliate KTUZ-TV (channel 30) began their coverage as the first severe thunderstorms erupted southwest of the state capital and subsequently began relaying their audio feeds to radio stations throughout central Oklahoma. As the forecast suggested that the most significant severe weather would occur in the mid-afternoon, around the time classes concluded for the day, many worried parents began arriving at schools throughout Moore and south Oklahoma City to pick up their children in advance of the storms.