Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 2007
EF0 tornado, Maverick, Texas, May 2, 2007
This EF0 tornado ran 0.5 miles across Runnels County on May 2, 2007, touching down at 2:08 PM CDT and reaching 30 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $8,000 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
- May 2, 2007
- Touchdown
- 2:08 PM CDT (19:08 UTC)
- Lifted
- 2:11 PM CDT (19:11 UTC)
- On the ground
- 3 minutes
- Path length
- 0.5 miles (0.7 km)
- Path width
- 30 yards (27 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $8,000
- County
- Runnels County
- Touchdown point
- 31.830, -100.190
- Lift-off point
- 31.835, -100.185
- Record number
- 0705021308-01
What the Weather Service recorded
A potent upper level system moved across Texas beginning in the late morning and continued into the afternoon. This produced a Quasilinear Convective System or Line Echo Wave Pattern (LEWP) that produced widespread damaging winds and a few isolated tornadoes. South of the line, more classic supercell structure was noted with thunderstorms across the Edwards Plateau and the Northwest Hill County, however no tornadoes were reported with these thunderstorms as the storms moved over very sparsely populated areas.
A tornado briefly touched down and destroyed a barn. No other damage was noted.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
26 minutes of warning. NWS SJT issued a tornado warning for this county at 18:42 UTC, 26 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 19:30 UTC.
The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 17:51 UTC and running to 23:53 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 15:00 UTC | 02:48 UTC | Flash Flood Watch | SJT |
| 17:49 UTC | 18:45 UTC | Tornado Warning | SJT |
| 17:51 UTC | 23:53 UTC | Tornado Watch | SJT |
| 18:42 UTC | 19:30 UTC | Tornado Warning | SJT |
| 19:09 UTC | 19:45 UTC | Tornado Warning | SJT |
| 19:28 UTC | 20:00 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | SJT |
| 19:41 UTC | 20:15 UTC | Tornado Warning | SJT |
| 19:54 UTC | 20:30 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | SJT |
| 20:11 UTC | 20:45 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | SJT |
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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 16:17 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.
Midland Regional, TX (KMAF), 12:00Z
7.1 hours before the tornado, 190 km from the path. May 2, 2007.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 948 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -48 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 1281 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 909 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 47 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 10 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 13 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 162 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.1 K/km
Midland Regional, TX (KMAF), 00:00Z
4.9 hours after it, 190 km from the path. May 3, 2007.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 525 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -159 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 907 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 953 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 33 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 6 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 4 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 24 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- -0.0
- Supercell composite
- -0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 6.6 K/km
The surface observations
San Angelo/Mathis (SJT), 61 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (kt) | Pressure (mb) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17:51 UTC | 73 | 63 | 80° 10 kt | 1010.2 | ||
| 18:51 UTC | 61 | 55 | 340° 21 kt | 36 | 1011.9 | -RA |
| 18:58 UTC | 59 | 55.4 | 300° 22 kt | 32 | 1013.2 | TSRA BR |
| 19:01 UTC | 59 | 55.4 | 300° 27 kt | 31 | 1012.9 | +TSRA BR |
| 19:14 UTC | 59 | 55.4 | 330° 24 kt | 32 | 1012.2 | +TSRA BR |
| 19:20 UTC | 59 | 57.2 | 320° 16 kt | 32 | 1012.5 | +TSRA BR |
| 19:23 UTC | 60.8 | 57.2 | 330° 17 kt | 29 | 1012.5 | +TSRA BR |
| 19:35 UTC | 60.8 | 57.2 | 10° 24 kt | 1010.8 | +TSRA BR | |
| 19:42 UTC | 60.8 | 57.2 | 20° 23 kt | 30 | 1009.8 | -TSRA BR |
| 19:51 UTC | 61 | 57 | 360° 15 kt | 29 | 1010.5 | -RA |
| 20:51 UTC | 63 | 57 | 80° 9 kt | 1009.5 |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
The radar
The San Angelo radar (KSJT), 59 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 19:08 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18:08 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Water Valley | Tom Green, TX | ROOFS BLOWN OFF HOUSES. |
| 18:28 UTC | TSTM WND GST 60 | Water Valley | Tom Green, TX | WIND DAMAGE WITH TREES DOWN AND NUMEROUS BARNS DESTROYED AND SOME MINOR DAMAGE TO HOMES. |
| 18:28 UTC | TSTM WND GST 60 | Water Valley | Tom Green, TX | WIND DAMAGE WITH TREES DOWN AND SOME STRUCTURAL DAMAGE. |
| 18:35 UTC | TSTM WND GST 60 | 3 N Grape Creek | Tom Green, TX | |
| 18:43 UTC | TSTM WND GST 75 | 3 N Grape Creek | Tom Green, TX | |
| 18:46 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 1 N Grape Creek | Tom Green, TX | WIND DAMAGE TO THE ROOF OF GRAPE CREEK MIDDLE SCHOOL |
| 18:46 UTC | TORNADO | 3 Sw Tennyson | Coke, TX | |
| 19:06 UTC | TSTM WND GST 60 | 2 S Bronte | Coke, TX | |
| 19:08 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Maverick | Runnels, TX | BARN DESTROYED |
| 19:08 UTC | TSTM WND GST 60 | Miles | Runnels, TX | |
| 19:08 UTC | TORNADO | Maverick | Runnels, TX | TORNADO DESTROYED A BARN PICTURES TAKEN |
| 19:16 UTC | TSTM WND GST 70 | 1 N Tennyson | Coke, TX | |
| 19:25 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 5 Ssw Winters | Runnels, TX | SEVERAL TELEPHONE POLES DOWN |
| 19:39 UTC | HAIL 0.88 | Paint Rock | Concho, TX | |
| 19:51 UTC | TSTM WND GST 70 | 4 N Ballinger | Runnels, TX |
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 May 2, 2007
7 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 2 | 12:20 PM CDT | EF0 | Sterling, TX | 0.6 | 20 | |||
| May 2 | 1:35 PM CDT | EF0 | Coke, TX | 6.4 | 50 | |||
| May 2 | 12:48 PM MDT | EF0 | Doña Ana, NM | 8.4 | 150 | |||
| May 2 | 1:45 PM MDT | EF0 | Otero, NM | 0.6 | 20 | |||
| May 2 | 3:20 PM CDT | EF1 | Coleman, TX | 5.7 | 100 | $100,000 | ||
| May 2 | 3:48 PM CDT | EF1 | Brown, TX | 4.8 | 110 | $10,000 | ||
| May 2 | 5:11 PM CDT | EF0 | Johnson, TX | 0.2 | 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.