EF3 tornado, Canadian, Texas, March 28, 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 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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF3

Date

March 28, 2007

Touchdown

9:30 PM CDT (02:30 UTC)

Lifted

9:55 PM CDT (02:55 UTC)

On the ground

25 minutes

Path length

7.8 miles (12.5 km)

Path width

1,408 yards (1287 m)

Deaths

1

Injuries

1

Property damage

$3.0 million

County

Hemphill County

Touchdown point

35.686, -100.489

Lift-off point

35.798, -100.506

Record number

0703282030-01

Severe thunderstorms during the evening hours produced numerous tornadoes and large hail across the southern...central and eastern Texas panhandle. Heavy rains caused flash flooding in the eastern Texas panhandle during the late night and early morning hours. One man was killed by a tornado in the northeastern Texas panhandle and another person was injured.

The tornado developed in southwestern Hemphill County approximately sixteen miles south southwest of Canadian. The tornado moved north northwest at twenty miles an hour and encountered an area of active oil drilling rigs. The tornado hit two drilling rigs. An employee of the first drilling rig that was hit was residing in a single-wide mobile home that was anchored into the ground. The mobile home was destroyed and displaced one hundred yards from its original location and the employee was thrown approximately fifty yards. A semi trailer used for storage was blown over. A structure used to lift the oil-well casing onto the oil derrick was also blown down and severely damaged. The tornado rolled a railroad boxcar one hundred and fifty yards. A series of power poles along County Road W covering a distance of zero point six miles was also blown down.|A second oil drilling rig and production facility were hit by the tornado where another unoccupied and anchored single-wide mobile home was rolled over. Nearby...two goose neck fifth-wheel camper trailers were parked...both unanchored with one occupied. This person was critically injured and later died from his injuries. The camper trailer that was occupied rolled forty-five yards to the northeast while a second unoccupied trailer was blown thirty yards before coming to rest on an oilfield production unit.|By 2041 CST...the tornado was crossing U.S. Highway 60...resulting in severe tree damage. Texas Department of Transportation officials...using light tree damage as an indicator...measured a damage width of zero point eight miles along U.S. Highway 60. At the center of this swath were numerous hardwood trees with trunks that had been broken off halfway up the tree. On the periphery of this area was a home located thirteen miles south southwest of Canadian that suffered only minor damage due to trees falling on the home. Many large trees were snapped twenty feet in the air. A second well built home suffered severe damage to the roof structure. The majority of the steel roofing structure was completely removed and six feet of brick chimney toppled onto the house. Several cedar beams were removed from the roof structure as well as several rafters despite being tied down by hurricane clips. Additionally...a steel feed bunk containing twenty six thousand pounds of feed was turned over on its side.|At 2045 CST...a Burlington Northern Santa Fe train was derailed with over fifty cars blown over. The tornado dissipated around 2055 CST.

The deaths

1 direct deaths are recorded for this tornado, each with what Storm Data knows of it.

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

13 minutes of warning. NWS AMA issued a tornado warning for this county at 02:17 UTC, 13 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 03:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:16 UTC and running to 04:29 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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.15 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 00:42 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 Amarillo radar (KAMA), 123 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 02:31 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

65 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 66 of them

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.