Purcell Emergency Management Director Andy Pipes has identified 18 Purcell homes damaged by the January 8 tornado that skipped its way across town early last Thursday morning.

Pipes reported there were no storm trackers out spotting when the tornado was spawned at 180th and Ladd Road at 7:24 a.m.

“And I think the reason for that was that it happened so quickly,” Pipes said. “I got a call at roughly 7 a.m. and by 7:34 it was over. It moved very quickly.”

The tornado hop-scotched across Purcell beginning with blowing over a semi truck on I-35 at mile marker 93.

The twister danced its way through Purcell and ended its 10 minutes of life east of U.S. 77 two miles north of Lexington.

Damage in Purcell included roof and tree damage and downed power poles.

No businesses in any part of town reported damage.

It’s what you would expect in spring, not so much in January.

State Climatologist Gary McManus says winter tornadoes aren’t unprecedented, but they are rare, at least until recent times.

The Purcell tornado was one of four reported by the National Weather Service that day and it was the strongest of the four, rated at an EF2.

“It was upgraded from and EF1 to a EF2 because of the way metal poles were bent,” Pipes said.

In addition to the EF2 in Purcell, the weather service reported an EF1 near the Shawnee Twin Lakes, EF1 in north Shawnee and an EF0 near Lake Thunderbird.

Assistant Public Works Director Trey Phillips reported 17 power poles were damaged or destroyed. His crew, plus crews from Edmond and Stillwater, worked long hours until late in the night. They resumed  early on Friday, trying to restore power to all customers.

The storm rolled through Purcell at 7:30 a.m. when power was cut to most of the city. Many residential customers and some businesses had power restored by 7 p.m.

By late Thursday night, Phillips reported power had been restored to all customers with the exception of those east of Green Ave. from Main Street to Grant St.

Those areas had their electricity back around 10 a.m. Friday

Also knocked out was power at Purcell Junior High where classes were cancelled on Thursday and students did virtual work on Friday.

Both Purcell High School and the Elementary School had power and classes as usual on Thursday. The Intermediate School had no power Thursday but did return to class work there Friday.

Power was restored to the remaining businesses and the junior high by around 10 a.m. Friday after 27 hours of being in the dark.

“It’s not unheard of. Before Thursday—we’ve had 30 tornadoes in January in Oklahoma since 1950,” McManus said. “In the last four or five years we’ve had about a dozen in January, as early as January 2. So, this isn’t the earliest. It’s certainly not the first January tornado we’ve had.”
McManus is concerned the severe storm season is off to such an early start.

“But it’s something we certainly don’t like to see this early because you worry about, you know, what’s the rest of the year going to be like?”

Pipes said he feels like Purcell was lucky the tornado didn’t just sit down and plow through the center of the city.

“We kind of came out unscathed,” Pipes said. “Besides trees, some out-buildings, some shingles and the roof of the old Farm and Home Building, we came out pretty well since the damage was so spotty.”

Thursday’s tornado warnings were the first to be issued in the nation this year.

Despite the damage from the storms, the first twisters of 2026 resulted in no reported injuries.

Emergency Management Director  Ron Johnson reported one house and 10 out buildings were damaged out in the country.

“There was also a lot of tree damage,” reported to the sheriff’s department.

No dollar damage assessments had been made by press time.

Mazzios, Dollar General and the Purcell Eye Clinic on the north end of Purcell never lost power. Most all other parts of town experienced power outages.

The powerful storm did bring .7” of rain to the area.