EF1 tornado, Estelline, Texas, March 10, 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

March 10, 2007

Touchdown

8:17 PM CST (02:17 UTC)

Lifted

8:18 PM CST (02:18 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.3 miles (0.4 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$25,000

County

Hall County

Touchdown point

34.550, -100.430

Lift-off point

34.550, -100.430

Record number

0703102017-01

A complex of high-based severe thunderstorms, some with supercell characteristics, propagated southeastward over the southern Texas Panhandle during the evening hours of the 10th. Between 20:15 and 20:20 CST, an intense downburst impacted Estelline in southeastern Hall County. |Damage was extensive, and four persons were injured when their mobile home was destroyed. A National Weather Service damage survey found evidence of a brief non-mesocyclonic tornado that developed as low level spin associated with the downburst gust front was stretched by strong updrafts. |Damages in Estelline were estimated to approach $275,000 and none of the injuries were life-threatening.|A severe storm additionally resulted in severe wind gusts near Childress around midnight CST.

A National Weather Service damage survey and witnesses indicated that a brief tornado developed near the center of Estelline. Tornadic winds estimated near 90 mph, along with a rapid onset of intense westerly winds associated with the ongoing downburst, resulted in the total collapse of two brick buildings. These structures were aged and abandoned businesses. Residents that were in the downtown area at the time of the storm reported intense easterly wind gusts that blew in doors and windows. Strong easterly inflow was additionally evidenced by the destruction of a trailer house just east of the town's center.

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.

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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 00:57 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 Altus AFB radar (KFDR), 135 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 02:17 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

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.