EF0 tornado, Littlefield, Texas, June 2, 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

June 2, 2007

Touchdown

10:35 PM CDT (03:35 UTC)

Lifted

10:40 PM CDT (03:40 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

1.5 miles (2.4 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Lamb County

Touchdown point

33.851, -102.320

Lift-off point

33.840, -102.280

Record number

0706022135-01

An active round of severe thunderstorms erupted along a series of outflow boundaries over the South Plains of west Texas during the evening hours of the 2nd, and persisted into the early morning hours of the 3rd. Atmospheric wind shear was sufficient to result in scattered supercell storms that produced extremely large hail and at least six tornadoes.||Damage from the storms was generally a result of large hail, which broke windows and dented vehicles in Levelland (Hockley County) and Meadow (Terry County).

Veteran storm chasers and Skywarn spotters observed at least one tornado as it intermittently developed, dissipated, and reformed over extreme southern Lamb County south of Littlefield. The tornado remained over open country east of U.S. Highway 385 and crossed into northern Hockley County at 21:40 CST. Eyewitness accounts describe that the tornado went through a Wizard of Oz-like phase when its movement was erratic as it roped out north of Whitharral. Radar data indicates that the tornado was associated with a deeply occluded mesocyclone within a weakening supercell storm.

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

38 minutes of warning. NWS LUB issued a tornado warning for this county at 02:57 UTC, 38 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 03:45 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 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 01:06 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.

Lubbock International Airport (LBB), 49 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The Lubbock radar (KLBB), 50 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 03:36 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 TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are

10 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.