Today Marks Lawton’s DVD-Sized Hail Anniversary

Today marks the three-year anniversary of Lawton's second-worst storm in SWOK history.

The first was the Terrible Tuesday Tornado Outbreak of 1979, when an F3 twister leveled portions of town around 2nd and Lee Boulevard... but June 15th, 2023, holds as a very close runner-up.

The Tale of Two Storms

If you weren't here in 2023, it was a doozy.

It started out like any other June day. Warm, sunny, humid... but by the time the afternoon rolled around, Oklahoma's typical summer popcorn showers started popping up out west of town.

We were actually on location doing a first-year-anniversary broadcast for a casino way up at the Apache Wye, and over the course of our couple of hours there, the sky turned dark, clouds rolled in, and you could feel the static in the air.

There was a considerable storm out by Hobart headed straight west, directly for Anadarko, and we were right in the path. So, naturally, when our quittin' time rolled around, we packed up as fast as possible and high-tailed it back south to Lawton... Only the Hobart storm suddenly changed direction and started following us all home.

At that same time, a storm was sweltering in the heat down by Vernon, Texas, and it was weirdly also headed towards Lawton too. Which isn't weird itself. Most Vernon storms head to Lawton... But for two storms to be headed two different directions at the same time as part of the same larger storm complex, it was a curious situation.

The Collision

Luckily, all of us (KLAW 101, Z94, and 1073 PopCrush) made it into our downtown parking garage just as the storms arrived. I remember a single hail stone hit the top of our vehicle right as I pulled below street level, and what happened next was historic.

The Hobart and Vernon storms collided over Lawton and just stalled out. Rotating in place for a few hours before moving on. It was quite the sight to see.

Whitney Heinz

Like a massive UFO, it sat nearly idle over Lawton and dropped what meteorologists coined for the first time, DVD-sized hail in Downtown Lawton for almost 45 full minutes.

That's a long time for hail to fall. It's normally a here-and-gone five-or ten-minute phenomenon, but it just wouldn't relent. Not to mention the half hour of golf-ball-to-baseball-sized hail that fell across the greater Lawton area too.

Eventually the super-storm got back on the move and headed out to the east, but not before becoming one of the worst storms Lawton has ever experienced. Thousands of roofs were destroyed. Power and electric substations were damaged. Thousands across Lawton were without power, and worse, it was impossible to find a hotel room in town that evening as people sought air conditioning in the heat.

One For The Record Books

If you weren't here, be glad.

All the same, it was one of the most impressive displays of nature short of seeing a massive twister in person.

We've made it halfway through the month with a little high wind and torrential downpouring... Let's hope we can hold off longer into the heat when the storm season moves farther north and out of our neck of the woods.