Tornadoes · United States · Kansas · 2007

EF0 tornado, Perth, Kansas, May 10, 2007

This EF0 tornado ran 0.5 miles across Sumner County on May 10, 2007, touching down at 4:30 PM CDT and reaching 30 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
May 10, 2007
Touchdown
4:30 PM CDT (21:30 UTC)
Lifted
4:31 PM CDT (21:31 UTC)
On the ground
1 minutes
Path length
0.5 miles (0.8 km)
Path width
30 yards (27 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Sumner County
Touchdown point
37.141, -97.500
Lift-off point
37.143, -97.514
Record number
0705101530-01

What the Weather Service recorded

Thunderstorms developed in the afternoon heat of May 10th tapping into rich moisture to produce copious amounts of rainfall. As the storms died they produced outflow boundaries. Two of these boundaries intersected in Sumner County to produce a weak landspout type of tornado. Another weak tornado was reported in Greenwood County. The city of Mulvane experienced flash flooding when one thunderstorm sat over the community and produced nearly 4 inches of rain in an hour. Parts of Southeast Kansas also saw flash flooding as water rose above several roads.

A brief tornado in open country that caused no damage.

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

The warnings

9 minutes of warning. NWS ICT issued a tornado warning for this county at 21:21 UTC, 9 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 21:35 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
21:13 UTC01:15 UTCFlash Flood WarningICT
21:21 UTC21:35 UTCTornado WarningICT

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. 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.

Lamont, OK (KLMN), 12:00Z

9.5 hours before the tornado, 58 km from the path. May 10, 2007.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Lamont, OK at 12:00Z on 2007-05-10Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 355 joules per kilogram, CIN -26, lifted condensation level 695 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, Lamont, OK at 12:00Z on 2007-05-10The 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 -29 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 18 knots.1939Sfc1 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
355 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-26 J/kg
Surface CAPE
670 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
695 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
18 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
13 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-29 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
11 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
-0.3
0-3 km lapse rate
5.7 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Lamont, OK (KLMN), 00:00Z

2.5 hours after it, 58 km from the path. May 11, 2007.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Lamont, OK at 00:00Z on 2007-05-11Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 777 joules per kilogram, CIN -5, lifted condensation level 981 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, Lamont, OK at 00:00Z on 2007-05-11The 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 53 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 11 knots.1939Sfc1 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
777 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-5 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1746 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
981 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
11 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
9 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
53 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
56 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
7.0 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Winfield (WLD), 42 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
19:35 UTC69.862.690° 5 kt1015.9TS
19:54 UTC6862100° 6 kt1015.9TS
20:42 UTC6862.630° 5 kt1015.9VCTS
20:49 UTC6860.840° 4 kt1015.9
20:54 UTC696230° 4 kt1015.9
21:54 UTC716210° 4 kt1016.3
22:54 UTC706310° 4 kt1015.9

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

The radar

The Wichita radar (KICT), 57 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:29 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
21:16 UTCFUNNEL CLOUD3 W PerthSumner, KS
21:55 UTCFUNNEL CLOUD2 E FreeportHarper, KSBRIEF ROPE FUNNEL CLOUD.
22:35 UTCFLASH FLOOD2 E DerbySedgwick, KSREPORT OF WATER FLOWING OVER THE ROAD AT 95TH STREET SOUTH AND GREENWICH ROAD.
22:35 UTCFLASH FLOODMulvaneSedgwick, KSREPORT OF CREEK THAT FLOWS THROUGH MULVANE HAS BACKED-UP AND FLOODED BUSINESSES IN TOWN. UNOFFICAL REPORT OF 5 INCHES OF RAIN DURING THE LATE AFTERNOON.

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 May 10, 2007

2 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
May 103:05 PM EDTEF0Susquehanna, PA2.975$15,000
May 105:15 PM CDTEF0Greenwood, KS1.030

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.