May 5th Tornado Outbreak
in Western Oklahoma

The May 5th Tornado Outbreak in western Oklahoma was actually a small portion of a much larger tornado outbreak across the Plains states that day. In fact, it was part of a very active week of severe weather in the Plains, which included the first F5 tornado since 1999. This F5 tornado hit Greensburg, Kansas on May 4, 2007.

The outbreak on May 5th produced 90 tornadoes in the Plains states. The states that were most affected were Kansas and South Dakota. In fact, 70 percent of the tornadoes that day impacted either one of those states. Below is a breakdown of the number of tornadoes by state. If you were to total up the number of tornadoes in this table, you would get 91. This is because one of the tornadoes crossed a state boundary - from Nebraska into South Dakota.

The tornadoes are also broken down by their Enhanced Fujita Scale rating. The values are listed in the table below. While no EF-4 or EF-5 tornadoes occurred on May 5th, 16 of the 90 tornadoes (18 percent) were rated either EF-2 or EF-3, which would be considered a strong tornado.

Across the National Weather Service Norman County Warning Area (CWA), 10 tornadoes occurred on the evening of May 5th. Three of these tornadoes were strong tornadoes (rated F2 or higher). This was the first time since May 29, 2004 that there had been 3 strong tornadoes in Oklahoma on the same date, and it was the first time since May 8, 2003 that there had been three strong tornadoes in the NWS Norman CWA on the same date.

Five of the ten tornadoes impacted Ellis County, which was the second highest daily total ever for that county. The EF-2 tornado that impacted Ellis County was the first strong tornado in that county since April 24, 1990, or in the past 17 years. Seven of the ten tornadoes impacted Roger Mills County, which set a record for the most tornadoes in that county on the same date. The EF-3 tornado that impacted Roger Mills County was the first strong tornado since June 8, 1995 - a date on which another tornado outbreak occurred, including the famous Pampa, Texas F4 tornado.

For more detailed information on various aspects of this severe weather event, use the links on the blue navigation menu to the left.