Do Oklahoma’s Mountains Protect Some Areas From The Weather?

I'm not sure if this is just a Wichita Mountains thing or if it's a persistent rumor around all of Oklahoma's mountain ranges, but the old wives' tale is that the mountains somehow prevent really severe weather from striking local towns.

Specifically, I've heard this about Lawton for the last twenty years or so.

L-Town has been pretty fortunate in most years past when it comes to severe weather. Tornadoes are rather rare, big hail events are few and far between, and the radar tends to show storm systems deviate from their path when approaching the Wichita Mountains.

Anecdotal Evidence. 

Yesterday, on what Oklahoma meteorologists are saying was the last day of storm season, SWOK had a few pretty intense pop-up storms in the area.

One formed Northeast of Lawton, out in the wilds near Sterling, and it headed due South at the speed of smell. It dropped an incredible amount of rain and hail.

Shortly after that storm began, other intense storms popped up Southwest of Lawton and quickly escalated to severe status as well, only they headed due North at the same incredibly slow pace.

Today, all anyone could talk about was how Lawton was the center of some weird on-land cyclone, and the Wichita Mountains were to thank for making those storms avoid us.

While there have been studies to support this notion, I think it's just dumb luck.

Case and Point. 

June 2023. There were two massive rotating storms floating across the plains on one extremely humid day.

The first was Northwest of Lawton and headed East-Northeast. I remember we were at the anniversary celebration of the Apache C-Store and wanting to skidaddle out of the storm's perceived path at that time.

The other storm was Southwest of Lawton and moving East-Southeast at the time. It was well below the Red River and of no concern to any of us, but that all changed.

As we started the almost-hour drive back to Lawton after the celebration, the winds changed in the atmosphere. Both storms randomly changed directions, and they collided over Lawton right as we got back to town.

As they collided, the storms stayed in place, rotating over Lawton. It dumped hail in Downtown for a solid hour. First quarter to ping-pong balls, the baseball to softball-sized stones of solid ice. It was something to behold.

At least one of those storms passed directly over the Wichita Mountains to get here.

A Fluke? 

The people I've talked about this with have all claimed it was some sort of a hundred-year freak storm, and still hold that the mountains steer the weather away from Lawton-Fort Sill... but new evidence out of Colorado this week proves otherwise.

As you know, Colorado is home to America's most spectacular mountains, the Rockies. Colorado also has a ton of tornadoes, though they're generally small, 90% in the EF0 category. That being said, they recently documented a tornado event that tore a path through the mountains at 9,000+ feet.

@accuweather A rare high-elevation tornado hit near Pikes Peak in Colorado on June 17. The tornado was near Divide, Colorado, at an elevation of 9,118 feet and leveled hundreds of trees. #tornado #pikespeak #colorado #weather #aftermath #drone #stormchaser #cowx #mountains #severeweather #accuweather ♬ original sound - AccuWeather

While the Rockies do have an effect on the weather, this proves that anything can happen anywhere, and Mother Nature is not afraid of heights.

Say what you will, it's hard to argue video proof.