During the morning and afternoon of Wednesday, June 2, 2004, a line of thunderstorms moved southward across the central and eastern parts of Oklahoma. The thunderstorms brought damaging wind gusts and large hail to a large part of the state. The most intense wind gusts were observed across Northcentral through Eastcentral parts of the Oklahoma.. Up to 80 mph wind gusts were reported and significant damage occurred in the Tulsa area where plate glass windows were blown out of buildings.

Across the Norman area, thunderstorm wind gusts reached 58 mph as the gust front associated with the thunderstorms passed across the city. Three-quarters of an inch to just over an inch of rain fell, breaking the dry spell. Hail also accompanied the storms, with one inch hail falling in Norman between 327-352 pm.

These thunderstorms developed along a cold front during the morning across southern Kansas. The airmass to the south of the front became very unstable across central and eastern Oklahoma where surface dew points were in the 70s and temperatures near 90 by early afternoon. As a cold pool developed, the thunderstorms began to accelerate into the warm and humid air mass. Typically, these type of storms (called a linear mesoscale convective system) produce very strong damaging winds and hail. Tuesday evening, a similar, but more intense, cluster of thunderstorms produced up to 100 mph winds in Fort Worth.

The above image shows the peak wind gusts at KJPR as the outflow passed through northwest Norman. The nearby Norman mesonet gusted to 62 mph.

This a radar image that was taken a couple of hours after the storms passed through Norman.