Tornadoes · United States · Missouri · 2007
EF0 tornado, Dexter to Essex, Missouri, May 3, 2007
From Dexter to Essex, this EF0 tornado ran 3.5 miles across Stoddard County on May 3, 2007, touching down at 4:28 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.
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
- May 3, 2007
- Touchdown
- 4:28 PM CDT (21:28 UTC)
- Lifted
- 4:36 PM CDT (21:36 UTC)
- On the ground
- 8 minutes
- Path length
- 3.5 miles (5.7 km)
- Path width
- 30 yards (27 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Stoddard County
- Touchdown point
- 36.749, -89.886
- Lift-off point
- 36.791, -89.850
- Record number
- 0705031528-01
What the Weather Service recorded
An isolated severe thunderstorm developed along a warm front that extended from west to east across southeast Missouri.
The tornado was videotaped and photographed over open farm country. Accounts from witnesses indicated the tornado touched down at least twice for two to three minutes at a time. Although a debris cloud was visible in photos, no damage of any kind was found on the nearly treeless landscape. The tornado first touched down near Highway D several miles east of its intersection with Highway 25. The tornado lifted a couple miles south of Essex.
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.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 16:21 UTC | 17:03 UTC | Flood Watch | PAH |
| 21:25 UTC | 22:15 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | PAH |
| 21:33 UTC | 22:00 UTC | Tornado 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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 20:05 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.
Little Rock, AR (KLZK), 12:00Z
9.5 hours before the tornado, 216 km from the path. May 3, 2007.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -70946 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 41 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 937 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 17 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 11 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 40 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 131 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.3 K/km
Little Rock, AR (KLZK), 00:00Z
2.5 hours after it, 216 km from the path. May 4, 2007.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 68 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -69 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 446 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 966 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 15 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 16 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 58 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 65 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 6.3 K/km
The radar
The Paducah radar (KPAH), 103 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:28 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21:02 UTC | HEAVY RAIN 1.5 | Bernie | Stoddard, MO | 3 TO 4 INCHES OF WATER ON STREETS...SEWERS STARTING TO BACK UP |
| 21:28 UTC | FUNNEL CLOUD | 4 S Essex | Stoddard, MO | REPORTED THROUGH EMERGENCY MANAGER |
| 21:35 UTC | TORNADO | 4 Se Dexter | Stoddard, MO | TRAINED SPOTTERS REPORTED A ROPE TORNADO AT COUNTY ROAD 751 AND COUNTY ROAD 736...TOUCHED DOWN AT LEAST TWICE AND IT WAS ON THE GROUND 2 TO 3 MINUTES PER TOUCHDOWN BEFORE GOING BACK INTO THE CLOUD. |
| 21:37 UTC | HAIL 1 | 2 E Essex | Stoddard, MO | |
| 21:56 UTC | HAIL 0.88 | 12 W Sikeston | Stoddard, MO |
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 May 3, 2007
12 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 3 | 4:47 PM CDT | EF1 | Morehouse Parish, LA | 2.0 | 75 | $120,000 | ||
| May 3 | 4:50 PM CDT | EF0 | Polk, TX | 0.3 | 25 | |||
| May 3 | 4:51 PM CDT | EF1 | Morehouse Parish, LA | 0.5 | 50 | $80,000 | ||
| May 3 | 5:18 PM CDT | EF1 | Ashley, AR | 5.0 | 400 | $500,000 | ||
| May 3 | 5:30 PM CDT | EF0 | Montgomery, TX | 0.8 | 45 | $30,000 | ||
| May 3 | 5:29 PM MDT | EF0 | Weld, CO | 0.1 | 50 | |||
| May 3 | 5:58 PM MDT | EF0 | Weld, CO | 0.1 | 50 | |||
| May 3 | 6:16 PM MDT | EF0 | Weld, CO | 0.1 | 50 | |||
| May 3 | 6:21 PM MDT | EF0 | Weld, CO | 0.1 | 50 | |||
| May 3 | 7:40 PM CDT | EF0 | Cooke, TX | 0.5 | 30 | |||
| May 3 | 7:50 PM MDT | EF0 | Weld, CO | 0.1 | 50 | |||
| May 3 | 8:20 PM MDT | EF0 | Morgan, CO | 0.1 | 50 |
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.