Tornadoes · United States · Kansas · 2007

EF0 tornado, Everest, Kansas, August 24, 2007

This EF0 tornado ran 0.1 miles across Brown County on August 24, 2007, touching down at 4:31 PM CDT and reaching 25 yards wide. It killed nobody.

The rating scale

Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Enhanced Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.

  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.

The record

Rating
EF0
Date
August 24, 2007
Touchdown
4:31 PM CDT (21:31 UTC)
Lifted
4:32 PM CDT (21:32 UTC)
On the ground
1 minutes
Path length
0.1 miles (0.2 km)
Path width
25 yards (23 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Brown County
Touchdown point
39.666, -95.430
Lift-off point
39.666, -95.430
Record number
0708241531-01

What the Weather Service recorded

A weak low level boundary interacted with a thunderstorm updraft in Brown County, and produced a weak tornado witnessed by a local deputy and a fire fighter. Minor tree damage was reported.

Deputy and Fire Fighter observed a brief tornado. A weak tornado damaged part of a cornfield and toppled the upper portion of a tree at 5180 334th Road.

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

The warnings

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
08:15 UTC12:15 UTCFlash Flood WarningTOP
20:53 UTC23:45 UTCFlash Flood WarningTOP
21:35 UTC21:45 UTCTornado WarningTOP

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 forecast that day

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a General Thunderstorms Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 20:00 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 air that afternoon

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.

Topeka, KS (KFOE), 12:00Z

9.5 hours before the tornado, 76 km from the path. August 24, 2007.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Topeka, KS at 12:00Z on 2007-08-24Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 0 joules per kilogram, CIN -86495, lifted condensation level 1236 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Topeka, KS at 12:00Z on 2007-08-24The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity -111 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 56 knots.19395878Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-86495 J/kg
Surface CAPE
91 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1236 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
56 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
11 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-111 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
69 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.1 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Topeka, KS (KFOE), 00:00Z

2.5 hours after it, 76 km from the path. August 25, 2007.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Topeka, KS at 00:00Z on 2007-08-25Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 435 joules per kilogram, CIN -35, lifted condensation level 862 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Topeka, KS at 00:00Z on 2007-08-25The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 32 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 45 knots.19395878Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
435 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-35 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1149 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
862 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
45 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
14 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
32 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
133 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.1
Supercell composite
1.4
0-3 km lapse rate
5.8 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Topeka radar (KTWX), 101 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:31 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.

What was reported nearby

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

Time (UTC)ReportWhereCountyRemark
21:31 UTCTORNADO1 Ne EverestBrown, KSDEPUTY AND FIREFIGHTER OBSERVED BRIEF TORNADO.
21:31 UTCTORNADO1 S EverestBrown, KSDEPUTY AND FIREFIGHTER OBSERVED BRIEF TORNADO.
21:32 UTCTORNADO5 Nw Lancaster KsAtchison, KSTORNADO REPORTED BY BROWN COUNTY SHERIFF
21:32 UTCTORNADO2 Se EverestBrown, KS

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

This ground now

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

The other tornadoes of August 24, 2007

9 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
August 242:50 PM CDTEF0Phelps, MO1.075$10,000
August 244:25 PM EDTEF3Eaton, MI6.53005$40 million
August 244:55 PM EDTEF1Ingham, MI6.0300$300,000
August 244:15 PM CDTEF0Dent, MO0.125
August 245:23 PM EDTEF0Shiawassee, MI0.350$50,000
August 245:30 PM EDTEF2Livingston, MI23.54401$24 million
August 244:32 PM CDTEF0Atchison, KS0.125
August 246:02 PM EDTEF0Washtenaw, MI2.550$500,000
August 246:16 PM EDTEF1Lapeer, MI3.2250$1.0 million

What this means

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.

Sources

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