Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 2007
EF0 tornado, Warren, Texas, December 15, 2007
This EF0 tornado ran 0.3 miles across Tyler County on December 15, 2007, touching down at 7:39 AM CST and reaching 50 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $12,000 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
- December 15, 2007
- Touchdown
- 7:39 AM CST (13:39 UTC)
- Lifted
- 7:40 AM CST (13:40 UTC)
- On the ground
- 1 minutes
- Path length
- 0.3 miles (0.4 km)
- Path width
- 50 yards (46 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $12,000
- County
- Tyler County
- Touchdown point
- 30.610, -94.411
- Lift-off point
- 30.613, -94.408
- Record number
- 0712150739-01
What the Weather Service recorded
As a cold front moved across the region, a couple of thunderstorms became severe and caused wind damage in Jasper and Tyler County.
A tornado briefly touched down near Warren. Several pine trees were blown down or uprooted, one home had some sheet metal roofing blown off a patio and a fence was blown down.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 13:00 UTC | 03:00 UTC | Lake Wind Advisory | LCH |
| 14:11 UTC | 14:24 UTC | Tornado Warning | LCH |
| 03:16 UTC | 05:00 UTC | Lake Wind Advisory | LCH |
| 03:16 UTC | 05:00 UTC | Lake Wind Advisory | LCH |
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 12:59 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.
Lake Charles Mun, LA (KLCH), 12:00Z
1.7 hours before the tornado, 128 km from the path. December 15, 2007.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 173 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -12 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 46 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 530 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 55 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 25 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 234 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 249 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 2.5
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.7 K/km
Lake Charles Mun, LA (KLCH), 00:00Z
10.3 hours after it, 128 km from the path. December 16, 2007.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -96807 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1630 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 62 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 13 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- -123 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- -171 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 3.0 K/km
The radar
The Lake Charles radar (KLCH), 127 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 13:39 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13:39 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 2 Ene Warren | Tyler, TX | ROOFS BLOWN OFF SHEDS...LIMBS DOWN. POSSIBLE TORNADO. |
| 14:15 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 3 Nw Magnolia Springs | Jasper, TX | TREE REPORTED DOWN ON POWER LINES ON COUNTY ROAD 351. |
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 TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of December 15, 2007
6 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| December 15 | 5:55 PM EST | EF0 | Early, GA | 3.8 | 75 | $30,000 | ||
| December 15 | 9:03 PM EST | EF0 | Worth, GA | 3.9 | 75 | $750,000 | ||
| December 15 | 9:20 PM EST | EF1 | Turner, GA | 3.5 | 125 | 1 | $1.3 million | |
| December 15 | 9:30 PM EST | EF1 | Wilcox, GA | 0.5 | 100 | $5,000 | ||
| December 15 | 10:18 PM EST | EF0 | Dodge, GA | 0.5 | 25 | $25,000 | ||
| December 15 | 10:41 PM EST | EF2 | Treutlen, GA | 3.5 | 200 | $100,000 |
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.