Tornadoes · United States · Kentucky · 2007
EF1 tornado, Elkton, Kentucky, March 1, 2007
This EF1 tornado ran 0.2 miles across Todd County on March 1, 2007, touching down at 2:20 PM CST and reaching 30 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $35,000 of property damage.
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.
EF065 to 85 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
EF4166 to 200 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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
- EF1
- Date
- March 1, 2007
- Touchdown
- 2:20 PM CST (20:20 UTC)
- Lifted
- 2:21 PM CST (20:21 UTC)
- On the ground
- 1 minutes
- Path length
- 0.2 miles (0.3 km)
- Path width
- 30 yards (27 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $35,000
- County
- Todd County
- Touchdown point
- 36.825, -87.156
- Lift-off point
- 36.827, -87.153
- Record number
- 0703011420-01
What the Weather Service recorded
A strong dry line or cold front moved rapidly east across the Mid-Mississippi and Lower Ohio Valleys during the midday hours. This feature trailed from a strong low pressure system that tracked from Kansas to Iowa. In advance of the front, numerous showers and thunderstorms developed. Several of these storms produced large hail, and there was a brief tornado.
This small tornado occurred in a neighborhood on the northwest side of Elkton. The roof was blown off a single wide mobile home. A metal roof was partially torn off a storage building. Half of the roof was blown off a site-built home. A chain link fence and a few trees were damaged. A pine tree was stripped of limbs. There was an eyewitness to the event. The tornado was rated an EF (Enhanced Fujita) 1 with peak winds of 88 MPH.
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.
The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 15:45 UTC and running to 21:16 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 07:10 UTC | 14:00 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Watch | PAH |
| 15:45 UTC | 21:16 UTC | Tornado Watch | PAH |
| 19:22 UTC | 19:53 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | PAH |
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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.15 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 20:06 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.
Nashville Metro, TN (KBNA), 12:00Z
8.3 hours before the tornado, 92 km from the path. March 1, 2007.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -69973 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 869 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 61 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 45 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 385 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 550 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.0 K/km
Nashville Metro, TN (KBNA), 00:00Z
3.7 hours after it, 92 km from the path. March 2, 2007.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 3 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -13 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 21 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 934 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 85 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 35 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- -193 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 137 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.6 K/km
What was reported nearby
Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Report | Where | County | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20:20 UTC | TORNADO | Elkton | Todd, KY | DAMAGE SURVEY REVEALS EF1 RATED TORNADO WHICH STARTED 100 YARDS WEST OF DON/ROOF RD TO 50 YARDS EAST OF POND RIVER RD. LENGTH OF 1000 FEET...WIDTH 100 FT. PEAK WINDS OF 88 MPH. TORNADO ON THE GROUND FOR 1 MINUTE. |
| 20:33 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Elkton | Todd, KY | TREE DAMAGE IN TRAILER PARK ON NORTH SIDE OF TOWN. ROOF DAMAGE TO HOMES...DEBRIS IN TREES...METAL PEELED BACK ON SOME OF THE TRAILERS. |
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 KentuckyEvery tornado in Kentucky since 1950Warnings in force in Kentucky nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of March 1, 2007
42 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| March 1 | 1:30 AM CST | EF0 | Monroe, MO | 2.1 | 50 | |||
| March 1 | 1:40 AM CST | EF1 | Monroe, MO | 3.4 | 60 | |||
| March 1 | 1:43 AM CST | EF1 | Monroe, MO | 8.6 | 100 | |||
| March 1 | 4:28 AM CST | EF0 | Carroll, AR | 2.0 | 50 | $10,000 | ||
| March 1 | 6:24 AM CST | EF3 | Ozark, MO | 15.0 | 200 | 1 | $760,000 | |
| March 1 | 9:50 AM CST | EF0 | Catahoula Parish, LA | 0.5 | 50 | |||
| March 1 | 10:45 AM CST | EF0 | Union, IL | 1.8 | 150 | $100,000 | ||
| March 1 | 11:20 AM CST | EF0 | Santa Rosa, FL | 0.5 | 30 | $8,000 | ||
| March 1 | 11:58 AM CST | EF1 | Yazoo, MS | 6.5 | 100 | $90,000 | ||
| March 1 | 12:05 PM CST | EF0 | Butler, AL | 3.1 | 30 | $20,000 | ||
| March 1 | 12:27 PM CST | EF4 | Millers Ferry tornado, AL | 6.1 | 500 | 1 | 2 | $2.0 million |
| March 1 | 12:31 PM CST | EF1 | Dallas, AL | 12.2 | 500 | $250,000 | ||
| March 1 | 12:47 PM CST | EF0 | Macon, IL | 1.0 | 30 | 1 | $37,000 | |
| March 1 | 1:08 PM CST | EF4 | Enterprise tornado, AL | 10.3 | 500 | 9 | 50 | $250 million |
| March 1 | 1:48 PM CST | EF1 | Dale, AL | 7.1 | 150 | 4 | $2.5 million | |
| March 1 | 1:52 PM CST | EF1 | Henry, AL to GA | 30.8 | 150 | 2 | $11 million | |
| March 1 | 2:48 PM CST | EF2 | Lowndes, AL | 24.6 | 600 | 6 | $700,000 | |
| March 1 | 2:59 PM CST | EF1 | Fayette, AL | 11.2 | 150 | $50,000 | ||
| March 1 | 3:00 PM CST | EF1 | Tuscaloosa, AL | 3.7 | 100 | $50,000 | ||
| March 1 | 4:11 PM EST | EF1 | Stewart, GA | 1.5 | 250 | $400,000 | ||
| March 1 | 3:12 PM CST | EF1 | Barbour, AL | 2.4 | 75 | |||
| March 1 | 3:45 PM CST | EF2 | Winston, AL | 9.6 | 100 | $50,000 | ||
| March 1 | 4:06 PM CST | EF1 | Jefferson, AL | 0.9 | 400 | $100,000 | ||
| March 1 | 5:29 PM EST | EF2 | Taylor, GA | 7.7 | 448 | 1 | 4 | $500,000 |
| March 1 | 5:34 PM EST | EF3 | Crawford, GA | 9.7 | 448 | 9 | $525,000 | |
| March 1 | 5:49 PM EST | EF1 | Crawford, GA | 11.9 | 100 | $100,000 | ||
| March 1 | 5:51 PM EST | EF0 | Bibb, GA | 2.5 | 100 | $100,000 | ||
| March 1 | 5:27 PM CST | EF2 | Muscogee, AL to GA | 11.7 | 300 | 1 | $28 million | |
| March 1 | 6:30 PM EST | EF1 | Jones, GA | 3.6 | 150 | $500,000 | ||
| March 1 | 6:44 PM EST | EF0 | Jones, GA | 0.0 | 50 | $5,000 | ||
| March 1 | 5:56 PM CST | EF1 | Shelby, AL | 0.7 | 100 | $30,000 | ||
| March 1 | 7:00 PM EST | EF1 | Talbot, GA | 4.1 | 100 | $50,000 | ||
| March 1 | 8:08 PM EST | EF2 | Warren, GA | 11.7 | 448 | 3 | $700,000 | |
| March 1 | 9:00 PM EST | EF3 | Webster, GA | 40.1 | 1,790 | 2 | 11 | $111 million |
| March 1 | 9:36 PM EST | EF3 | Macon, GA | 3.1 | 1,790 | $2,000 | ||
| March 1 | 10:30 PM EST | EF0 | Bleckley, GA | 1.4 | 448 | $250,000 | ||
| March 1 | 10:40 PM EST | EF2 | Wilkinson, GA | 13.3 | 895 | $30,000 | ||
| March 1 | 10:52 PM EST | EF1 | Marion, GA | 2.5 | 100 | $25,000 | ||
| March 1 | 11:44 PM EST | EF2 | Baker, GA | 30.5 | 200 | 6 | 3 | $4.0 million |
| March 1 | 12:20 AM EST | EF2 | Worth, GA | 4.5 | 150 | 2 | $275,000 | |
| March 1 | 12:30 AM EST | EF2 | Worth, GA | 2.9 | 200 | $500,000 | ||
| March 1 | 12:42 AM EST | EF1 | Tift, GA | 7.9 | 150 | $1.4 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.