page_title: 2013 Moore tornado
section_title: Storm development and track
hierarchical_section_title: 2013 Moore tornado / Storm development and track
caption_attribution_description: English: Meteorologist and civil engineer Tim Marshall surveys the remains of a residential neighborhood that was entirely flattened by the tornado.
context_page_description: On the afternoon of Monday, May 20, 2013, a large and extremely powerful EF5 tornado ravaged Moore, Oklahoma, and adjacent areas, with peak winds estimated at 210 mph, killing 24 people and injuring 212 others. The tornado was part of a larger weather system that had produced several other tornadoes across the Great Plains over the previous two days, including five that 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, and stayed on the ground for 37 minutes over a 17-mile path, crossing through a heavily populated section of Moore. The tornado was 1.08 miles wide at its peak. It followed a roughly similar track to the deadlier 1999 Bridge Creek–Moore tornado, which was smaller in size but just as severe; however, very few homes and neither of the stricken schools in the area had purpose-built storm shelters in the intervening years since the earlier tornado struck Moore.
context_section_description: 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, which were expected to be equal – if not, stronger – in severity to the supercells that produced the five tornadoes in the expected area of greatest tornadic threat the day prior, 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 storm. At 2:40 p.m. CDT, as rotation in the supercell was increasing at the cloud base, a tornado warning was issued for far northeastern Grady, western Cleveland, northern McClain, and southern Oklahoma Counties, as the storm approached the Oklahoma City metropolitan area.
  The tornado touched down at 2:56 p.m. CDT in northeastern Grady County, near Long Drive and the southwest corner of the North Country Club Road and Northwest 32nd Street intersection, roughly 4.4 miles (7.1 km) northwest of downtown Newcastle. Initially a narrow cone-shaped tornado, it first caused EF1 damage to a home and some trees before rapidly intensifying and striking a semi-rural subdivision on the north side of Northwest 32nd, where several homes were destroyed, two of which were leveled at EF4 intensity. At this point, the tornado began to grow rapidly in size, evolving into a large, wedge-shaped structure; slight ground scouring began in this area. Several homes in a subdivision further to the northeast sustained EF3 damage. By 3:01 p.m. CDT, the National Weather Service issued a second, more strongly worded warning for the area: in a special weather statement that updated the existing tornado warning, the Norman forecast office declared a tornado emergency for southern Oklahoma City and Moore as various storm spotters confirmed that the large, violent tornado was approaching the area. The Twin Lakes dual-polarization NEXRAD radar (near Lake Stanley Draper) detected a tornado debris signature one mile in diameter within the accompanying hook echo, as the tornado crossed into portions of south Oklahoma City in northern Cleveland County. The supercell also produced straight-line winds of 80 miles per hour (130 km/h) for at least one mile surrounding the tornadic circulation.
  The tornado maintained EF3 intensity as it crossed the Canadian River into Cleveland County, and a decommissioned U.S. 62/U.S. 277 bridge was severely damaged; this bridge had to be demolished after the tornado ripped part of it from its mount and tossed it across Interstate 44. The tornado then continued directly toward south Oklahoma City and Moore, roughly following Southwest 149th Street. At that point, it began to grow rapidly in width, and a second brief area o
caption: Meteorologist Tim Marshall surveys a neighborhood that was devastated.
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