EF1 tornado, Washington, Iowa, July 16, 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

July 16, 2007

Touchdown

5:49 PM CDT (22:49 UTC)

Path length

0.5 miles (0.8 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$100,000

County

Washington County

Touchdown point

41.330, -91.670

Lift-off point

41.330, -91.670

Record number

0707161649-01

A cluster of storms developed during the mid-afternoon hours of July 16th near Cedar Rapids. It moved southward producing torrential rains, large hail, and damaging winds. Just before 6 PM, a tornado touched down on the east side of Washington, IA. Additional severe storms developed northwest of the Cedar Rapids area during the early evening hours, which were quickly followed by a thunderstorm complex which produced damaging winds and large hail. The severe weather activity died down between 11 PM and 4 AM. Between 4 and 8 AM, yet another thunderstorm complex dove southeast from northeast Iowa to central Illinois producing damaging winds and flooding rains. Rainfall totals throughout the 18 hour period ranged between 1 and 4 inches.

A tornado touched down on the east side of town. It moved south and lifted approximately one half mile south of town.||A car dealership and nearby storage garage were damaged in Washington. A car and small pickup truck were reported to be briefly lifted and dropped. Numerous tree limbs and branches were down throughout town.|

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

13 minutes of warning. NWS DVN issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:36 UTC, 13 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:38 UTC and running to 04:00 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 20:14 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.

Washington (AWG), 6 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The Quad Cities radar (KDVN), 96 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:49 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 IowaEvery tornado in Iowa since 1950Warnings in force in Iowa nowThe forecast where you are

3 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.