EF1 tornado, Colony to Selma, Kansas, February 28, 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 28, 2007

Touchdown

7:05 PM CST (01:05 UTC)

Lifted

7:22 PM CST (01:22 UTC)

On the ground

17 minutes

Path length

9.4 miles (15.2 km)

Path width

440 yards (402 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Anderson County

Touchdown point

38.070, -95.340

Lift-off point

38.170, -95.209

Record number

0702281905-01

A low pressure system pushed northeastward out of Oklahoma during the afternoon hours the 28th. The warm front extending from the low provided a focus for thunderstorm development. Tornadoes, gusty winds, and large hail were all reported across the Topeka CWA, with the first reports received just after 18:00 CST.

A weak EF-0 tornado touched down briefly in open country producing no damage. It developed from a parent HP-supercell thunderstorm. The path width was around 50 yards and the length was around one mile.

Report relayed from storm chaser to KAKE TV, who transmitted the report to NWS-Topeka. An HP-supercell thunderstorm tracked across southern Anderson Couty the evening of the 28th. The supercell thunderstorm produced a tornado that touched down just east of the city of Colony. |The tornado moved northeast and was on the ground for nearly 9 1/2 miles. It lifted around 5 miles east of Welda. The average width of the tornado was 250 yards. Ultimately, over 40 structures were damaged but remarkably no injuries occurred. Most structures reported minor damage. However, numerous trees were toppled and outbuildings destroyed. Power lines were downed resulting in power loss to a number of southeast Anderson county residents. At least one barn was destroyed and several homes received significant structural damage. Windows were blown out of a number of homes as well as cars. The most significant damage occurred to a large span metal horse arena. This arena had steel girders and concrete footings. It was lifted out of the ground and destroyed. Horsemen in the arena at the time the tornado approached found safety in a small interior room and were uninjured. However, a horse and rider who remained in the arena were both thrown 100 feet into a field. But neither the horse nor the rider was seriously injured. Another horse had a steel pipe driven through its head but was not killed. The resident of this property lost his billfold to the tornadic wind. However, in the clean-up the next day, he found his billfold in a bird's nest nearby. An elderly lady who was very deaf was asleep in her house when it was hit by the tornado. The house received significant damage. But she was unhurt and had no idea what happened until a neighbor found her later and explained her house had been hit. The Garnett police chief was racing south behind the storm in his patrol car and nearly lost control when he came upon 3 to 4 inches of solid ice (hail) on the road. Reports indicated that a large amount of hail had fallen along a parallel path 3 to 5 miles north of the tornado. At one farmstead, a railroad car used as a storage shed was pushed off its foundation and rolled three times along the ground, smashing cattle panels and fences. The tornado was rated EF-1.

A weak EF-0 tornado touched down in southeast Anderson County around 1 mile east of Selma, and tracked northeast entering Linn county around 4 miles northeast of Selma. See Stormdata for Kansas, northeast, for more information on the continuation of this tornado. In Anderson County, the tornado flattened some grasses, and caused minor tree damage. The tornado occurred from a parent HP-Supercell thunderstorm. The path width was around 100 yards and the length around 3.5 miles. |

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

10 minutes of warning. NWS TOP issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:55 UTC, 10 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:37 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 23:10 UTC and running to 06:12 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, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 00:56 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 Pleasant Hill radar (KEAX), 117 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:04 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

9 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.