Oklahoma’s Experiencing the Longest EF5 Tornado Drought on Record

Oklahoma is well on its way to extending the current record on large, destructive tornadoes. It has been almost twelve full years since an EF5 scorched a path anywhere across the country, the last being the May 13th Moore twister back in 2013.

That's not to say the world hasn't had some big tornadoes since then, there have been... but nothing has risen to the "Granddaddy" level of EF5 since.

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While there was a period of time in the late 2000s and into the early 2010s when EF5's were happening quite regularly, it's not that twisters grew to that size a lot, but it was a time when dark skies gave everyone something to worry about.

In the collected world history of meteorology, there have been a total of 65 F5 and EF5 rated tornadoes dating back to 1764 when Germany sprouted the very first monster. The Fujita Scale wasn't around back then, but as science dug through the data, they assigned those early storms this morbid honor much more recently.

Of those 65 F5/EF5 events, 8 of them crawled across Oklahoma. The last two EF5s happened here in Oklahoma. Piedmont in 2011, Moore in 2013. The infamous May 3rd '99 storm is a common reference in the Sooner State too.

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Should we call it a drought?

There have been a few tornadoes over the last twelve years that scientists argue about, but alas, the official record shows EF4 designations instead of EF5 status, and it's all Oklahoma's fault.

The May 31st, 2013 El Reno monster changed a lot about how we examine tornadoes. It's both the physically largest and most powerful tornado on record, but it's still officially designated as an EF3.

Why? Because the Enhanced Fujita Scale is a measurement of destruction, not intensity. That particular 2.6-mile-wide twister didn't actually destroy much. It came down to earth in the middle of nowhere and eventually returned to the sky forty-ish minutes later after hitting a handful of farms and agricultural-related structures.

The same shenanigans can be claimed for other recent storms.

There have been 11 tornadoes since the May 13th Moore EF5 that are adorned with asterisks. They've all been designated EF4 in the official records by civil engineers as per the damage to buildings and such, but meteorologists claim these were all EF5-level storms in terms of intensity.

It's the difference between the original Fujita Scale, which measured intensity, and the Enhanced Fujita Scale, which only measures damage.

This disparity between scales is also Oklahoma's fault, as it was the May 3rd '99 Bridge Creek-Moore F5 that inspired the changes from F-scale to EF-scale... and it's still not perfect according to so many meteorologists who are clamoring for additional changes.

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Almost twelve full years into the longest EF5 tornado drought in recorded history, while I'm sure there's a small part of us all who would enjoy seeing the awesome fury of the weather, nobody wants to see a repeat of Oklahoma's most infamous events.