HOUSTON — Severe thunderstorms struck parts of Texas and Oklahoma on Monday evening, producing short-lived tornadoes — including stunning images of side-by-side twisters in rural Oklahoma — but as of early Tuesday the region appeared to have been largely spared from violent weather that had been feared by forecasters.
The warning by forecasters, issued by the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., predicted a “major severe weather outbreak” on Monday over parts of northwest Texas and western and central Oklahoma, including a series of “potentially long-track and violent” tornadoes.
By early Monday evening, scattered tornadoes briefly touched down in largely rural areas in southwest and north-central Oklahoma, causing some damage but no reported injuries or fatalities. The new concern became severe flooding, as a long line of sluggish storms moved east across the state and dumped heavy rainfall.
In the north-central part of the state, local television crews captured images of two twin tornadoes in a rural region near the small town of Crescent. In the southwestern corner of the state near the Texas border, a tornado appeared to strike some homes near Mangum, a town of 3,000 more than 150 miles from Oklahoma City.
National Weather Service forecasters posted a message on Twitter shortly after 5 p.m., warning about that tornado near Mangum. “Take cover NOW!” a forecaster wrote in the tweet.
Later in the evening, forecasters issued a tornado watch until 5 a.m. Tuesday for nearly three million people in Oklahoma and Texas, saying the potential remained for lime-size hail and strong tornadoes.
As part of the warning issued earlier on Monday, the Storm Prediction Center took the rare step of announcing a “high risk” zone for potentially catastrophic tornadoes, the first time in two years the center had designated such an area. Numerous cities and towns were placed in the high-risk zone, including the Texas towns of Childress, Haskell and Snyder, as well as Oklahoma City, Norman, Lawton and Moore in Oklahoma.
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In 2013, a deadly tornado devastated Moore, a suburb just south of Oklahoma City, destroying an elementary school and killing several students inside. That tornado carved a destructive path in the region for 17 miles and killed 24 people, including 10 children. The timing of the warning was particularly ominous for residents of Moore: Monday was the six-year anniversary of the tornado that struck the town.
On Monday in Moore, City Hall and other government buildings closed at 1 p.m. and an evening City Council meeting was canceled in anticipation of the severe weather. The city, which has been rebuilt following the 2013 tornado, is used to being in the path of twisters: It has been hit by four tornadoes since 1999, and numerous others long before that.
This time, however, the anniversary appeared to pass tornado-free.
“You don’t ever forget it,” said Representative Mark McBride, a state lawmaker who lives in Moore and whose district includes the town. “I think in my legislative district I lost 1,100 homes — just totally wiped out. My parents lost their home. We built back. My parents built back. We’re a pretty tough bunch.”
On Monday, several school districts in Oklahoma, including in the Oklahoma City and Tulsa regions, canceled classes. Other residents and agencies were taking their own precautions. Tinker Air Force Base, near Oklahoma City, evacuated some aircraft.
The office of the Oklahoma governor, Kevin Stitt, said in a statement that the state’s emergency operations center had been activated and that an advance team from the Federal Emergency Management Agency had been brought in to “help facilitate the delivery of any federal resources that may be needed.”
In a brief video posted on Twitter, a National Weather Service forecaster said to expect “multiple waves of severe thunderstorms,” adding, “Do not let your guard down on Monday night. It looks like severe storms and flooding will still be a big problem overnight.”
