EF1 tornado, Western to Dorchester, Nebraska, May 5, 2007

1. EF065 to 85 mph

   Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

2. EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado

   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.

Rating

EF1

Date

May 5, 2007

Touchdown

4:58 PM CDT (21:58 UTC)

Lifted

5:28 PM CDT (22:28 UTC)

On the ground

30 minutes

Path length

18.3 miles (29.4 km)

Path width

400 yards (366 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Saline County

Touchdown point

40.371, -97.200

Lift-off point

40.619, -97.080

Record number

0705051558-01

A warm front that was along the Kansas and Nebraska border early Saturday morning May 5th, lifted north during the day bringing widespread heavy rain and severe weather, including tornadoes, to eastern Nebraska and southwest Iowa. The warm front was part of a large upper level system that brought several days of severe weather and flooding to the region. |Heavy rain and flooding was reported with some of the activity Saturday morning, along with isolated severe thunderstorm reports. However, during the afternoon the severe weather became more widespread over northeast Nebraska where supercells spawned several tornadoes. At this time, thunderstorms, some severe with heavy rain, produced flash flooding over parts of southeast Nebraska. By evening the severe weather, including supercell producing tornadoes, shifted into southwest Iowa, although isolated severe thunderstorms persisted over parts of eastern Nebraska until after midnight cdt.

This tornado did intermittent damage from 2 miles south of Western to around 3 miles southeast of Dorchester. As the tornado initially touched down south of Western, a camper and machine shed were destroyed and a center pivot overturned. In rural Saline county around 13 miles west of Wilber trees were twisted and uprooted and some building damage was noted and some debris was scattered up to 1/4 mile away from its original location. Farm outbuildings were severely damaged in the Tabor Hall area, which is 5 miles south of Dorchester, and numerous trees were uprooted or destroyed in the area which destroyed or severely damaged 8 headstones and monuments in a nearby cemetery. The final damage area was around 3 miles southeast of Dorchester where several pig feeders and livestock huts were destroyed and the roof of a farm outbuilding was removed and a barn destroyed.

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

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 tornado watch, issued at 19:43 UTC and running to 02:32 UTC.

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 Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Moderate Risk, with a 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. 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 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.

The Grand Island radar (KUEX), 112 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:00 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.

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

The live radar over the trackEvery 2007 tornado in NebraskaEvery tornado in Nebraska since 1950Warnings in force in Nebraska nowThe forecast where you are

96 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 97 of them

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.

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.