Tornadoes · United States · Nebraska · 2007
EF1 tornado, Cody, Nebraska, June 21, 2007
This EF1 tornado ran 3.0 miles across Cherry County on June 21, 2007, touching down at 7:15 PM MDT and reaching 50 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $75,000 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
- June 21, 2007
- Touchdown
- 7:15 PM MDT (01:15 UTC)
- Lifted
- 7:21 PM MDT (01:21 UTC)
- On the ground
- 6 minutes
- Path length
- 3.0 miles (4.8 km)
- Path width
- 50 yards (46 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $75,000
- County
- Cherry County
- Touchdown point
- 42.973, -101.250
- Lift-off point
- 42.930, -101.250
- Record number
- 0706211915-01
What the Weather Service recorded
A surface front located across the Sandhills provided focus for outbreak of severe weather including numerous reports of tornadoes. Strong storms also dropped out of South Dakota and quickly turned tornadic. Additional storms moved out of Northeast Colorado and brought large hail to Southwest Nebraska.
A tornado touched down a few miles north of Cody and moved south. In the path, the tornado tore the roof off a shop, destroyed a barn, twisted iron feed bunks, and snapped trees in a wind break. The main household was not damaged and no injuries were reported.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
11 minutes of warning. NWS LBF issued a tornado warning for this county at 01:04 UTC, 11 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 02:00 UTC.
The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 21:38 UTC and running to 05:00 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 21:38 UTC | 05:00 UTC | Tornado Watch | LBF |
| 00:46 UTC | 01:45 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | LBF |
| 01:04 UTC | 02:00 UTC | Tornado Warning | LBF |
| 01:15 UTC | 01:45 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | LBF |
| 01:24 UTC | 02:15 UTC | Tornado Warning | LBF |
| 02:00 UTC | 02:43 UTC | Tornado Warning | LBF |
| 02:20 UTC | 02:45 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | LBF |
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, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 01:05 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.
Rapid City, SD (KUNR), 00:00Z
1.3 hours before the tornado, 181 km from the path. June 22, 2007.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -97600 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 14 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 3725 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 37 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 1 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- -1 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 28 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 8.4 K/km
Rapid City, SD (KUNR), 12:00Z
10.7 hours after it, 181 km from the path. June 22, 2007.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 1230 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -101 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1270 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 20 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 9 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- -44 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 53 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- -1.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.6 K/km
The radar
The North Platte radar (KLNX), 124 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:13 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01:02 UTC | HAIL 1.75 | 1 E Valentine | Cherry, NE | |
| 01:05 UTC | TORNADO | 8 W Merritt Reservoir D | Cherry, NE | BREIF TORNADO TOUCHDOWN |
| 01:15 UTC | TORNADO | Cody | Cherry, NE | TORNADO REPORTED MOVING NORTHWEST TO SOUTHEAST JUST EAST OF CODY. BARN DESTROYED AND ROOF TORN OFF OF SHOP AT ONE RESIDENCE. HOUSE WAS NOT DAMAGED AND THERE WERE NO INJURIES. |
| 01:15 UTC | FUNNEL CLOUD | 12 S Harrington | Bennett, SD | FUNNEL CLOUD REPORTED NEAR SOUTH DAKOTA/NEBRASKA STATE LINE. |
| 01:17 UTC | TORNADO | 3 Ne Cody | Cherry, NE | TOUCH DOWN NORTWEST OF NENZEL |
| 01:25 UTC | HAIL 1 | Merritt Reservoir Dam | Cherry, NE | DIME TO QUARTER SIZED HAIL REPORTED. |
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 NebraskaEvery tornado in Nebraska since 1950Warnings in force in Nebraska nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of June 21, 2007
7 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 21 | 3:46 PM EDT | EF1 | Seneca, NY | 1.5 | 100 | $10,000 | ||
| June 21 | 3:51 PM CDT | EF0 | Butler, IA | 0.1 | 25 | |||
| June 21 | 3:55 PM CDT | EF0 | Wright, IA | 0.1 | 30 | |||
| June 21 | 4:24 PM CDT | EF0 | Butler, IA | 0.1 | 30 | |||
| June 21 | 4:58 PM CDT | EF0 | Story, IA | 0.1 | 30 | |||
| June 21 | 5:22 PM CDT | EF0 | Black Hawk, IA | 0.1 | 30 | |||
| June 21 | 7:05 PM MDT | EF0 | Cherry, NE | 0.1 | 20 |
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.