EF0 tornado, Lake Ellsworth Dam, Oklahoma, May 8, 2007

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

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

2. EF186 to 110 mph

   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

EF0

Date

May 8, 2007

Touchdown

8:15 PM CDT (01:15 UTC)

Path length

0.2 miles (0.3 km)

Path width

30 yards (27 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Comanche County

Touchdown point

34.830, -98.403

Lift-off point

34.830, -98.403

Record number

0705081915-01

An upper level storm system moved slowly east northeast through southeast Arizona and southwest New Mexico. A couple of disturbances rotated around the storm system and moved over the southern plains during the morning and afternoon hours. One disturbance moved over Oklahoma during the morning hours, with the other moving over Oklahoma during the evening hours. A stationary front remained located south of the Red River, with another front establishing itself over the southeast third of Oklahoma. Showers and thunderstorms developed and moved over the main body of Oklahoma during the morning hours. Widespread flash flooding was reported over central Oklahoma, with rivers rising out of their banks. After a lull in precipitation for a few hours the other disturbance moved over Oklahoma during the late afternoon and evening hours. Widespread showers and thunderstorms developed over southwest Oklahoma and continued to develop into central and southern Oklahoma. Large hail and severe wind gusts were reported, with flash flooding and river flooding continuing to be a concern due to the heavy rainfall earlier in the day. Supercell thunderstorms formed in southwest Oklahoma producing one tornado near Lake Ellsworth. As the showers and storms continued to develop and move northeast, a mesoscale convective vorticity maximum (MCV) developed. In the vicinity of this MCV, transient circulations on many scales were observed in the storm-relative radar velocity fields and in the storm motions themselves. Some of the circulations briefly tightened to tornado scale causing damage west of Minco, west of Union City, and in El Reno. Monetary damages were estimated.

An Oklahoma City television storm chaser observed a brief tornado from a supercell thunderstorm west of Lake Ellsworth. No damage was reported from this tornado.

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

36 minutes of warning. NWS OUN issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:39 UTC, 36 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 22:30 UTC and running to 03:00 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:35 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.

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 OklahomaEvery tornado in Oklahoma since 1950Warnings in force in Oklahoma nowThe forecast where you are

8 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

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.