Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 2007
EF0 tornado, Wylie, Texas, March 30, 2007
This EF0 tornado ran 0.8 miles across Collin County on March 30, 2007, touching down at 9:20 PM CDT and reaching 40 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $500,000 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
- March 30, 2007
- Touchdown
- 9:20 PM CDT (02:20 UTC)
- Lifted
- 9:22 PM CDT (02:22 UTC)
- On the ground
- 2 minutes
- Path length
- 0.8 miles (1.2 km)
- Path width
- 40 yards (37 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $500,000
- County
- Collin County
- Touchdown point
- 33.020, -96.550
- Lift-off point
- 33.033, -96.557
- Record number
- 0703302020-01
What the Weather Service recorded
An upper low pressure system situated to the west brought large scale lift to north Texas. Southerly winds brought deep rich moisture from the Gulf of Mexico. These and other factors caused numerous thunderstorms to develop. Widespread flooding and wind damage followed, as well as a few tornadoes.
A storm survey was conducted by the National Weather Service in Fort Worth to ascertain the cause of damage. Based on observed damage and eyewitness reports, a tornado touched down just west of FM 1378 and roughly one mile south of Parker Road. Approximately 25 to 30 homes in and south of the Riverchase subdivision suffered substantial damage to roofs and garage doors. Several other homes suffered minor roof damage, broken windows, and fence damage. In addition, several trees along the track were downed. |This tornado was rated EF-1 with estimated wind speeds of 95 MPH. This tornado developed along the leading edge of a bow echo.
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.
The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 22:34 UTC and running to 02:57 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 15:11 UTC | 22:34 UTC | Tornado Watch | FWD |
| 22:34 UTC | 02:57 UTC | Tornado Watch | FWD |
| 01:37 UTC | 04:30 UTC | Flash Flood Warning | FWD |
| 01:56 UTC | 02:45 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | FWD |
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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:56 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.
Fort Worth, TX (KFWD), 00:00Z
2.3 hours before the tornado, 72 km from the path. March 31, 2007.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 249 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -6 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 328 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 644 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 44 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 31 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 183 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 158 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.2
- Supercell composite
- 0.9
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 6.4 K/km
Fort Worth, TX (KFWD), 12:00Z
9.7 hours after it, 72 km from the path. March 31, 2007.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -91454 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1171 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 73 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 16 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- -43 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 115 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.0 K/km
The radar
The Dallas/Ft Worth radar (KFWS), 86 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.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 02:33 UTC | TSTM WND GST 58 | Kaufman | Kaufman, TX | ESTIMATED 58 MPH WIND GUST IN TERRELL AT HIGHWAY 205 AND HIGHWAY 80 |
| 02:40 UTC | TSTM WND GST 70 | 5 E Quinlan | Hunt, TX | ESTIMATED 70 MPH WIND GUST AT LAKE TAWAKONI |
| 02:57 UTC | FLASH FLOOD | Countywide | Tarrant, TX | NUMEROUS ROADS CLOSED COUNTYWIDE DUE TO FLASH FLOODING. |
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 March 30, 2007
11 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| March 30 | 10:03 AM CDT | EF0 | Hays, TX | 0.2 | 50 | |||
| March 30 | 10:25 AM CDT | EF0 | Hays, TX | 0.3 | 50 | |||
| March 30 | 11:20 AM CDT | EF0 | Eastland, TX | 1.0 | 30 | |||
| March 30 | 12:02 PM CDT | EF0 | Nolan, TX | 7.2 | 75 | 1 | $14,000 | |
| March 30 | 12:43 PM CDT | EF0 | Erath, TX | 1.0 | 30 | |||
| March 30 | 3:55 PM CDT | EF0 | Bell, TX | 2.5 | 30 | |||
| March 30 | 4:36 PM CDT | EF1 | Coryell, TX | 3.1 | 30 | $35,000 | ||
| March 30 | 4:40 PM CDT | EF1 | McLennan, TX | 2.0 | 30 | $500,000 | ||
| March 30 | 6:00 PM CDT | EF0 | McLennan, TX | 0.5 | 30 | |||
| March 30 | 9:28 PM CDT | EF0 | Morris, KS | 2.8 | 20 | |||
| March 30 | 10:39 PM CDT | EF0 | Douglas, KS | 2.0 | 30 |
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.