EF1 tornado, Echo, 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 mphthis tornado

   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 mph

   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

EF1

Date

March 1, 2007

Touchdown

1:48 PM CST (19:48 UTC)

Lifted

1:52 PM CST (19:52 UTC)

On the ground

4 minutes

Path length

7.1 miles (11.4 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

4

Property damage

$2.5 million

County

Dale County

Touchdown point

31.449, -85.506

Lift-off point

31.522, -85.421

Record number

0703011348-01

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.

The tornado touched down southwest of the community of Echo and traveled northeast along State Road 27 before it crossed into western Henry County. The damage assessment indicated that the EF-1 tornado damaged 24 mobile homes and destroyed five others. Four residents of a mobile home were injured when the tornado damaged their mobile home. The tornado also demolished 18 chicken houses, which killed 140,000 chickens. The tornado's path missed the Ft Rucker, Alabama WSR-88D RDA site by less than a quarter mile. Numerous trees and utility poles were snapped. Dale County was declared a federal disaster area.

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

39 minutes of warning. NWS TAE issued a tornado warning for this county at 19:09 UTC, 39 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 20:00 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.