Ticker for February 27, 2023

                
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February 27, 2023  February 27, 2023  February 27, 2023  February 27, 2023


Outbreak




There's not much to say about last night that hasn't already been said, but
"historic" seems fitting. Maybe a dozen or more tornadoes touched down yesterday
in the state? I add that as a question since we may not know for days after the
local weather folks from the NWS and SPC offices go out and investigate what was
tornadic damage vs. straight-line wind damage. At any rate, we blew away the
record for tornadoes in February, the previous high which was 6 in 1975 and 2009.
Now you'd be hard-pressed to find a worse single TORNADO than the one that struck
Lone Grove back on Feb. 10, 2009, a killer EF4 twister that left 8 dead and 46
injured. Here's what I wrote about that day back in 2009:

February 2009 will not be remembered for its warmth, even
though it was the 10th warmest on record, nor for its dryness,
with a less-impressive rank of 46th driest. Unfortunately, the
month’s claim to fame comes from the deadly tornado which
struck Lone Grove on the 10th. The EF4 twister, February’s first
violent tornado since accurate statistics began in 1950, killed
eight and injured 46 others. Another couple of tornadoes roared
through the north part of Oklahoma City and Edmond. The
Lone Grove tornado was the state’s first killer tornado during
the month of February since 1975, and the strongest since two
F3 tornadoes struck in 1961. Six confirmed tornadoes struck
the state on the 10th, tying it with 1975 for the most tornadoes
during the month of February.

Here is the storm report map from that day.



February 1975 was no cakewalk either, with 5 of its 6 twisters being F2 and
3 dead, 34 injured.

There was also softball sized hail that day, and lots of damage. So maybe we
can't match that day in February 2009 for sheer ferocity, but we can overwhelm
it in coverage. However, if you live in one of the many locations impacted by
twisters (or possibly straight-line winds) last night, the ferocity is off the
charts for you...Cheyenne, Mustang, OKC, Norman, Shawnee, Minco, etc.

Oddly enough, if you look back at the total number of tornadoes for 1975 and
2009, they were relatively mundane, both finishing with annual totals of 34
tornadoes. But if we end up with a dozen or more twisters yesterday--and I dare
say that number could go well above a dozen--combine that with the record 5
tornadoes we had last month and we're already looking at maybe 20+ for 2023
already...AND WE HAVEN'T EVEN "OFFICIALLY" HIT SPRING YET! So not only have we
had the earliest tornadoes on record (since 1950) in the state with the five
that touched down on Jan. 2 this year, but we have the record numbers already
for January, February, and January/February combined. The previous Jan/Feb
record was 7 back in 1975.

I don't know how it bodes for the rest of 2023 with spring still staring us in
the face, but we're off to one helluva bad start. Winds have calmed somewhat,
but we had 59 severe wind gusts (at least 58 mph) during the last 24 hours
recorded by the Mesonet, the tops of which was 86 mph at Fittstown at 10:25pm.





In the silk purse/sow's ear silver-lining attempt, at least we got some
decent rainfall out of this mess, with parts of NW OK seeing their first
significant accumulations in months. Still a long way to go for much of that
area, however.





The weather appears to look much calmer for the next week or so. Maybe some
storms down in SE OK Wednesday and Thursday. We'll see our temperatures
bouncing around from the 70s to the 50s to the 60s as we go through the week,
fitting for this time of year.



I'm not really excited about March if February is any sort of harbinger of
things to come.

Gary McManus
State Climatologist
Oklahoma Mesonet
Oklahoma Climatological Survey
gmcmanus@mesonet.org