News release issued May 31, 2001, effective immediately.
For media inquiries, contact Caroline Booth Lara, Communications Specialist, (580) 224-6379.
  email: cblara@noble.org

Thunderstorms deliver windy punch to much of Oklahoma

ARDMORE, Okla. - Residents in many parts of Oklahoma are continuing to cope with broken limbs and debris from the devastating Memorial Day weekend thunderstorms that brought damaging winds from the Panhandle to the Red River.
Ferocious winds associated with a southeastward-moving thunderstorm complex affected most of Oklahoma west of a line from Pawhuska to Durant. The strongest wind gust (93 miles per hour) recorded by the state's automated weather reporting network (Mesonet) occurred at Ardmore in Carter County just before midnight on May 27.

Gusts of more than 80 miles per hour were recorded by Mesonet sites in Ellis, Dewey, Beaver, Washita and McClain counties. Woodward, Major, Garfield, Osage, Custer, Comanche, Cotton, Garvin, Murray and Johnston counties were hit with winds of more than 70 miles per hour, according to Mesonet data. Two dozen additional counties experienced wind gusts in excess of 50 miles per hour.

The thunderstorm complex formed during the day Sunday in southern Kansas and gradually developed southward and westward into northern Oklahoma during the afternoon. The storms consolidated into a northeast-southwest line and began moving rapidly to the southeast, accompanied by heavy rain, frequent lightning, hail and the powerful winds.
The line began to form bow-shaped protrusions as it accelerated its movement toward the Red River. These bow-shaped areas produced some of the strongest winds.

"Severe thunderstorms with damaging winds are not unusual in Oklahoma, as anyone who has lived here for a while knows very well," said Joe Lobell, who spent two years as a weathercaster in Texas and now serves as public relations director at the Noble Foundation in Ardmore. "But this was unusual because of the huge area impacted by the damaging winds. On paper the geographical distribution of the strong winds recorded by the Mesonet sties looked more like a hurricane than a thunderstorm."

The Noble Foundation helped fund the development of the Oklahoma Mesonet, which includes more than 100 automated weather stations located throughout Oklahoma.

The storm system weakened after crossing the Red River into Texas, but not before causing power outages in the Texas counties along the border.

"All the ingredients came together in the right place at the right time for this widespread severe weather event," Lobell said. "Power lines, buildings and trees all suffered significant damage. And many of the trees in the southern part of the state were in the process of recovering from the record-breaking ice storm that hit that area last Christmas."

But it could have been worse.

"I guess the silver lining to this event was that there were relatively few tornadoes reported with these storms, and that's always good news," Lobell added.

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The Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation, headquartered in Ardmore, Okla., is a non-profit organization conducting agricultural, forage biotechnological, and plant biology research; providing grants to numerous non-profit charitable, educational and health organizations; and assisting farmers and ranchers through educational and consultative agricultural programs.

To learn more, check out the Noble Foundation Web site at http://www.noble.org.

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