EF0 tornado, Ellis to Alvarado, Indiana, July 26, 2007

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

   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 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

EF0

Date

July 26, 2007

Touchdown

8:16 PM EDT (00:16 UTC)

Lifted

8:17 PM EDT (00:17 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.0 miles (0.0 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Steuben County

Touchdown point

41.608, -84.920

Lift-off point

41.608, -84.920

Record number

0707261816-01

A combination of upper level support, cool temperatures, moderate instability and shear allowed for a few storms to develop in the Grant and Blackford county area. These storms produced some wind and hail. A supercell developed in far southern Michigan and dropped into Steuben County where rotation and several brief weak tornado touchdowns were observered by a trained spotter. Damage occurred in parts of the county from this storm before it moved into Ohio.

Video footage submitted by a trained spotter indicated a brief touchdown of a tornado in an open field on State Road 1, south of US 20. The tornado was associated with a supercell that showed persistent, but weak rotation.

Southwest of Alvarado on State Route 427, videotape shows the second of three weak tornadoes, spawned by a persistant supercell. Trees in the area obscured the exact point of touch down, but no damage was reported in the approximate area of the touchdown.

The final in a series of three weak tornadoes was videotaped south of Alvarado on State Route 427. The tornado touched down briefly in an open field and then either dissipated or lost its condensation funnel. Another brief tornado became evident just east of the first one a few minutes later, but quickly dissipated. No damage was reported from this tornado.

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

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.

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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:50 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.

The Northern Indiana radar (KIWX), 71 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:13 UTC.

Open the radar archive at this moment, over the track

Reflectivity and velocity, decoded from the Level II archive in the browser. Volumes take a few seconds to open the first time.

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 IndianaEvery tornado in Indiana since 1950Warnings in force in Indiana nowThe forecast where you are

2 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.