Tornado outbreak of April 12, 1945

Confirmed tornadoes

All ratings on the Fujita scale were made by Thomas P. Grazulis, a tornado expert, and are classified as unofficial ratings since official ratings for tornadoes began in 1950. Grazulis only documented tornadoes he considered to be significant (F2+), so the true number of tornadoes for this outbreak is most likely higher. The National Weather Service in Norman, Oklahoma noted the Antlers, Oklahoma tornado was F5 on the Fujita scale, which makes that tornado’s rating an official/unofficial rating, since it is a rating mentioned by the National Weather Service before 1950.

Antlers–One Creek–Nashoba, Oklahoma

This violent tornado, commonly known as the Antlers Tornado, devastated a third of Antlers, with over 600 structures being destroyed and over 700 others being damaged, as it crossed from the southwest corner to the northeast corner of the town. Some portions of Antlers were completely swept clean of all debris. In total, the tornado killed 69 people, injured 353 others, and caused $1.5 million (1945 USD) in damage. Despite the extremely large death toll and extreme destruction in Antlers, the tornado was barely reported, due to the death of the sitting U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Tornado expert Thomas P. Grazulis said that, “even nearby newspapers had more information on the death of the President than on the tornado”. The National Weather Service in Norman, Oklahoma (NWS Norman) marked this tornado as the fourth deadliest tornado in Oklahoma history. NWS Norman also rated this tornado F5 on the Fujita scale, making the rating on this tornado an official/unofficial rating. In December 1945, J. L. Baldwin, a meteorologist at the United States Weather Bureau office in Washington, D.C., published a paper, where he stated that this tornado was “the greatest tornado disaster during 1945”. The Tornado Project, headed by Grazulis, listed this tornado as one of the worst tornadoes in Oklahoma history. The Pushmataha County Historical Society stated that a total of 86 people were eventually killed by the storm, indicating at least 17 indirect deaths occurred from the tornado.