A tornado touched down in Oklahoma — in January. Here’s why that’s so rare

The morning began with sirens in the Oklahoma City metro area.

The National Weather Service offices in Oklahoma City and Tulsa issued seven tornado warnings during Thursday morning’s commute, and confirmed that at least four tornadoes touched down.

Tornadoes in January are not unheard of – but in Oklahoma and Kansas, that’s pretty bizarre.

Nationwide, the U.S. averages about 40 tornadoes each January. But most are relegated to the Deep South – like in Mississippi and Alabama, in closer proximity to the warmth and humidity of the Gulf. There had only previously been 30 January tornadoes total confirmed in Oklahoma since 1950, coming to an average of just 0.4 per year.

Of the ones that were confirmed this week, three of them were rated EF1 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale, which assigns damage ratings on a scale from 0 (weakest) to 5 (strongest). EF1 tornadoes have winds between 86 mph and 110 mph.

There was also a straight-line wind gust to 88 mph at the Wynona, Oklahoma, mesonet weather station, and a gust to 81 mph at the Independence Airport in Montgomery, Kansas.

The strongest of Thursday’s hit Purcell, Oklahoma, about 20 miles south of the Oklahoma City metro area on Interstate 35. It’s the seat of McLain County. It touched down at 7:24 a.m. and covered 9.4 miles in just 10 minutes, meaning it had a forward speed of 56 mph. That’s the equivalent of highway speeds!

Why tornadoes this time of year – in this region –

are so rare

In general, tornadoes need two ingredients to form: storm fuel and spin. Storm fuel is characterized by warm, humid air that rises. Rising air is necessary to stretch spin into a vortex.

But warm, humid air is usually hard to come by in the wintertime. That’s why we get what meteorologists refer to as “HSLC”, or High Shear/Low CAPE, setups. (CAPE, or convective available potential energy, is the technical term for storm fuel, whereas shear describes changing winds with height. That’s what makes storms spin.)

Wind fields are stronger in the wintertime. Without much storm fuel, any storms or showers struggle to grow tall enough to feel the changing winds. But on the rare occasions they do, they can spawn a few brief, quick-hitting tornadoes. That’s what happened Thursday morning.

Wintertime tornadoes tend to move faster and have longer path lengths. They also are, on average, a bit stronger than warm-season tornadoes, since they feed off stronger jet stream winds aloft.

“This tornado developed near 180th Street and Ladd Road southwest of Purcell and moved northeast,” wrote the National Weather Service. “One home about 3 miles southwest of Purcell had the roof removed.”

As the twister moved through town, it damaged a few homes and utility poles before crossing the Canadian River. It then caused significant damage to an outbuilding north of Lexington in Cleveland County.

Uptick in winter tornadoes

Warming temperatures may be making it easier for wintertime tornadoes to form. Oklahoma City has warmed 4 degrees during the month of January since 1948. Every day since Monday hit 70 degrees or greater; with Monday reaching 76 degrees. The early January average high for this location is 49 degrees.

There has been an increase in wintertime tornado counts – though some of that may be associated with an uptick in reporting and detection. Of the Sooner State’s 34 recorded January tornadoes, 16 – nearly half – have occurred since 2020.

In 2023, Oklahoma saw 13 February tornadoes. The previous record had been six.

The biggest November tornado outbreak on record occurred in 2024, with 36 tornadoes throughout the month.

And in 2022, Oklahoma got 8 December tornadoes – twice the previous record.

In other words, all the cold season months – October, November, December, January and February – have seen record tornado counts since 2021.