EF4 Enterprise tornado, Alabama, March 1, 2007

1. EF065 to 85 mph

   Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

2. EF186 to 110 mph

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. EF2111 to 135 mph

   Considerable damage. Roofs torn off well-built houses, frame homes shifted on their foundations, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, cars lifted off the ground.

4. EF3136 to 165 mph

   Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.

5. EF4166 to 200 mphthis tornado

   Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

6. EF5over 200 mph

   Incredible damage. Strong frame houses swept off their foundations, car-sized missiles thrown more than 100 meters, steel-reinforced concrete badly damaged, high-rise buildings deformed.

7. Unrated

   The survey recorded a tornado but could not put a number on it, most often because it crossed open country and damaged nothing a rating can be read from.

Rating

EF4

Date

March 1, 2007

Touchdown

1:08 PM CST (19:08 UTC)

Lifted

1:18 PM CST (19:18 UTC)

On the ground

10 minutes

Path length

10.3 miles (16.6 km)

Path width

500 yards (457 m)

Deaths

9

Injuries

50

Property damage

$250 million

County

Coffee County

Touchdown point

31.284, -85.919

Lift-off point

31.377, -85.783

Record number

0703011308-01

Severe thunderstorms developed ahead of a warm front over the Florida Panhandle and moved northeast across southeast Alabama and into extreme southwest Georgia during the afternoon hours of March 1. The strongest tornado, classified an EF-4, killed nine and injured 50 in Enterprise, Alabama.

A tornado touched down just southwest of the Enterprise Municipal Airport. It caused minor damage to some houses. Four chicken houses were destroyed. The tornado then traveled northeast and quickly intensified as it moved into the Enterprise city limits. It severely damaged the high school just north of the downtown. Eight students were killed as walls collapsed on them while they took shelter in the interior hallways. Fifty more were injured. The football stadium was destroyed. Many vehicles surrounding the schools were overturned or tossed about. Several state roads were impassible due to debris and fallen utility poles and lines. The ninth fatality occurred where an elderly woman was standing behind a living room window of her home as the glass shattered. A nearby elementary school was heavily damaged with no deaths or injuries reported there. Damage near the high school and in northeast Enterprise reached low end EF-4. Damage assessments indicated 239 homes destroyed, 374 homes with major damage, 529 homes with minor damage, and 251 homes affected. Coffee County was declared a federal disaster area, with preliminary FEMA individual assistance figures totalling over $1 million.

The deaths

9 direct deaths are recorded for this tornado, each with what Storm Data knows of it.

From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.

21 minutes of warning. NWS TAE issued a tornado warning for this county at 18:47 UTC, 21 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 19:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 15:50 UTC and running to 01:45 UTC.

Every warning and watch covering the touchdown point that day, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service products. Lead time is measured from the issue of the warning in force to the touchdown time in the database, both of which were recorded to the minute by different people.

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a High Risk, with a 0.30 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 16:46 UTC.

SPC's Day 1 convective outlook as it stood when the tornado began, read at the touchdown point. The same archive is on the radar archive.

The radiosonde launches on either side of the tornado, from the nearest station that was launching then, drawn and analyzed the way Storm Lab does: the same diagram, the same parcel and shear definitions SPC's mesoanalysis uses.

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

The live radar over the trackEvery 2007 tornado in AlabamaEvery tornado in Alabama since 1950Warnings in force in Alabama nowThe forecast where you are

42 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. Tornado counts rise through the record as reporting improved, so a year in the 1950s is not comparable with one today except for the strongest tornadoes, which were always noticed.

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.