Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 2007

EF0 tornado, Virginia Pt, Texas, July 5, 2007

This EF0 tornado ran 2.0 miles across Galveston County on July 5, 2007, touching down at 6:05 PM CDT and reaching 30 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $30,000 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.

  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.

The record

Rating
EF0
Date
July 5, 2007
Touchdown
6:05 PM CDT (23:05 UTC)
Lifted
6:13 PM CDT (23:13 UTC)
On the ground
8 minutes
Path length
2.0 miles (3.2 km)
Path width
30 yards (27 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$30,000
County
Galveston County
Touchdown point
29.260, -94.939
Lift-off point
29.260, -94.901
Record number
0707051705-01

What the Weather Service recorded

Residual thunderstorm boundaries from previous day storms allowed a focus for various northern storms to form upon and slowly travel. Upper level low, combined with abundant moisture, produced numerous showers and thunderstorms through the 4th of July.

Tornado spotted on the island side of the Causeway Bridge, near Interstate 45 and Teichman Point, moving east to southeast. Damage included a few uprooted trees, various fences, and minor structural damage to a car dealership and motel.

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.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
19:02 UTC19:30 UTCMarine WarningHGX
20:31 UTC03:00 UTCMarine StatementHGX
21:03 UTC22:00 UTCMarine WarningHGX
23:51 UTC00:19 UTCMarine WarningHGX

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 19:51 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

11.1 hours before the tornado, 192 km from the path. July 5, 2007.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Lake Charles Mun, LA at 12:00Z on 2007-07-05Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 1778 joules per kilogram, CIN -18, lifted condensation level 611 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Lake Charles Mun, LA at 12:00Z on 2007-07-05The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 156 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 28 knots.1939Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
1778 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-18 J/kg
Surface CAPE
251 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
611 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
28 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
28 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
156 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
173 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
5.1
0-3 km lapse rate
5.1 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Lake Charles Mun, LA (KLCH), 00:00Z

0.9 hours after it, 192 km from the path. July 6, 2007.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Lake Charles Mun, LA at 00:00Z on 2007-07-06Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 2173 joules per kilogram, CIN -5, lifted condensation level 682 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Lake Charles Mun, LA at 00:00Z on 2007-07-06The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 24 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 46 knots.193958Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
2173 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-5 J/kg
Surface CAPE
3245 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
682 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
46 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
7 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
24 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
95 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.3
Supercell composite
2.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.8 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Houston radar (KHGX), 28 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:04 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)ReportWhereCountyRemark
20:55 UTCFUNNEL CLOUD2 Nw GalvestonGalveston, TXWATER SPOUT
21:05 UTCTORNADOGalvestonGalveston, TXSMALL TORNADO REPORTED BY GALVESTON CO EM. ALSO VISIBLE ON TRANSTAR TRAFFIC CAMERAS. SHINGLE DAMAGE REPORTED 7700 BLOCK OF BROADWAY.

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

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.