Tornadoes · United States · Missouri · 2007
EF0 tornado, Dillon, Missouri, August 24, 2007
This EF0 tornado ran 1.0 miles across Phelps County on August 24, 2007, touching down at 2:50 PM CDT and reaching 75 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $10,000 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 mphthis tornado
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mph
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
- EF0
- Date
- August 24, 2007
- Touchdown
- 2:50 PM CDT (19:50 UTC)
- Lifted
- 2:51 PM CDT (19:51 UTC)
- On the ground
- 1 minutes
- Path length
- 1.0 miles (1.6 km)
- Path width
- 75 yards (69 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $10,000
- County
- Phelps County
- Touchdown point
- 37.970, -91.720
- Lift-off point
- 37.970, -91.720
- Record number
- 0708241350-01
What the Weather Service recorded
A short wave trough interacted with a moist and unstable airmass over the Missouri Ozarks that resulted in several strong to severe thunderstorms. Mainly wind damaged occurred, however, two tornadoes also touched down in Dent and Phelps counties.
A National Weather Service storm survey revealed that an EF-0 tornado briefly touched down in the community of Dillon. The tornado caused tree and structural damage to a business called BCI.
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.
The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 17:20 UTC and running to 00:42 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 17:20 UTC | 00:42 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Watch | SGF |
| 19:28 UTC | 20:30 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | SGF |
| 19:52 UTC | 20:15 UTC | Tornado Warning | SGF |
| 20:39 UTC | 21:18 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | SGF |
| 21:00 UTC | 08:55 UTC | Flash Flood Watch | SGF |
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 Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 16:14 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.
Springfield, MO (KSGF), 12:00Z
7.8 hours before the tornado, 219 km from the path. August 24, 2007.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 1334 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -50 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 396 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 948 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 38 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 7 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 27 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 84 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.4
- Supercell composite
- 2.3
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.0 K/km
Springfield, MO (KSGF), 00:00Z
4.2 hours after it, 219 km from the path. August 25, 2007.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 491 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -79 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 511 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 975 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 35 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 12 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 33 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 98 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.1
- Supercell composite
- 0.4
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.6 K/km
The radar
The St Louis radar (KLSX), 121 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 19:48 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) | Report | Where | County | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18:58 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | St. James | Phelps, MO | A LARGE SHED DESTROYED AND SEVERAL CARS DAMAGED. |
| 19:34 UTC | HAIL 1 | Doolittle | Phelps, MO | |
| 19:42 UTC | HAIL 0.75 | Rolla | Phelps, MO | REPORTED AT MILE MARKER 184 ON I-44. |
| 19:50 UTC | TORNADO | 4 E Rolla | Phelps, MO | A NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE STORM SURVEY REVEALED THAT A WEAK EF-0 TORNADO TOUCHED DOWN NEAR THE COMMUNITY OF DILLON...OR FOUR MILES EAST OF ROLLA. THE TORNADO WAS 75 YARDS WIDE AND WAS ON THE GROUND FOR ABOUT ONE MILE. T |
| 19:58 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | St. James | Phelps, MO | A LARGE SHED DESTROYED AND SEVERAL CARS DAMAGED. |
| 21:15 UTC | TORNADO | 8 Nnw Salem | Dent, MO | A WEAK EF-0 TORNADO TOUCHED DOWN IN RURAL DENT COUNTY APPROXIMATELY 8 MILES NORTH NORTHWEST OF SALEM. THE TORNADO WAS 50 YARDS WIDE WITH A PATH OF NEAR ONE TENTH OF A MILE. LITTLE DAMAGE OCCURED. |
| 21:25 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Licking | Texas, MO | TREES DOWN ALONG SHAFFER ROAD IN TOWN. |
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 MissouriEvery tornado in Missouri since 1950Warnings in force in Missouri nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of August 24, 2007
9 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| August 24 | 4:25 PM EDT | EF3 | Eaton, MI | 6.5 | 300 | 5 | $40 million | |
| August 24 | 4:55 PM EDT | EF1 | Ingham, MI | 6.0 | 300 | $300,000 | ||
| August 24 | 4:15 PM CDT | EF0 | Dent, MO | 0.1 | 25 | |||
| August 24 | 5:23 PM EDT | EF0 | Shiawassee, MI | 0.3 | 50 | $50,000 | ||
| August 24 | 5:30 PM EDT | EF2 | Livingston, MI | 23.5 | 440 | 1 | $24 million | |
| August 24 | 4:31 PM CDT | EF0 | Brown, KS | 0.1 | 25 | |||
| August 24 | 4:32 PM CDT | EF0 | Atchison, KS | 0.1 | 25 | |||
| August 24 | 6:02 PM EDT | EF0 | Washtenaw, MI | 2.5 | 50 | $500,000 | ||
| August 24 | 6:16 PM EDT | EF1 | Lapeer, MI | 3.2 | 250 | $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.