EF1 tornado, Fowler to Dodge City, Kansas, February 23, 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

February 23, 2007

Touchdown

10:11 PM CST (04:11 UTC)

Lifted

10:40 PM CST (04:40 UTC)

On the ground

29 minutes

Path length

18.4 miles (29.6 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$275,000

Counties

Meade and Ford counties

Touchdown point

37.446, -100.283

Lift-off point

37.696, -100.119

Record number

0702232211-01

Tornadoes in February in southwest Kansas are a rare occurrence but striking at night is even more of a rare event. Late in the evening on February 23, 2007, two tornadoes danced across the farmland of Meade, Gray and Ford counties. The strongest and longest lived tornado had it���s sights on Dodge City but fortunately dissipated before reaching the city of 30,000 plus. It did however produce EF1 damage southwest of town.

The first tornado started at 956 PM CST 8.5 miles west of Fowler in Meade county and traveled about 2.5 miles before dissipating at 1006 PM 7.5 miles northwest of Fowler. It did very minor damage to some trees.

The second tornado to form started 6.3 miles northwest of Fowler at 1011 PM and traveled a total of 17 miles dissipating at 1040 PM 7 miles southwest of the Dodge City Post Office. It did EF1 damage to five pivot irrigation sprinklers, trees and some outbuildings...in addition to moving a 3000 gallon tank about 1/2 of a mile. In Meade county it tipped over a pivot sprinkler before moving into Ford county at 1014 PM.

The second tornado to form started 6.3 miles northwest of Fowler at 1011 PM and traveled a total of 17 miles dissipating at 1040 PM 7 miles southwest of the Dodge City Post Office. It did EF1 damage to five pivot irrigation sprinklers, trees and some outbuildings...in addition to moving a 3000 gallon tank about 1/2 of a mile.

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

19 minutes of warning. NWS DDC issued a tornado warning for this county at 03:52 UTC, 19 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 04:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 02:29 UTC and running to 08:35 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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:43 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 Dodge City radar (KDDC), 29 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 04:11 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 KansasEvery tornado in Kansas since 1950Warnings in force in Kansas 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.