Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 2007

EF0 tornado, Gonzales, Texas, September 4, 2007

This EF0 tornado ran 0.2 miles across Gonzales County on September 4, 2007, touching down at 6:35 PM CDT and reaching 10 yards wide. It killed nobody.

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.

  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.

The record

Rating
EF0
Date
September 4, 2007
Touchdown
6:35 PM CDT (23:35 UTC)
Lifted
6:37 PM CDT (23:37 UTC)
On the ground
2 minutes
Path length
0.2 miles (0.3 km)
Path width
10 yards (9 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Gonzales County
Touchdown point
29.500, -97.354
Lift-off point
29.500, -97.350
Record number
0709041735-01

What the Weather Service recorded

An upper level trough moved across South Central Texas producing showers and thunderstorms which primarily caused flash flooding in the western and central counties. There was also one storm which produced a weak tornado.

A tornado touched down twice near SH97. It destroyed some chicken houses. The tornado was rated EF0 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale.

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

What forecasters said that day

The local office's own words before the tornado touched down, as it sent them, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service text.

NWS Austin/San Antonio, TX wrote its last area forecast discussion before the tornado touched down at Sep 4, 3:17 PM CDT, 3 hours 18 minutes earlier.

Area forecast discussion, Sep 4, 3:17 PM CDT, 3 hours 18 minutes before
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The surface observations

La Grange/Fayette Regional (3T5), 60 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
00:00 UTC

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

The radar

The Austin/San Antonio radar (KEWX), 69 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:33 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.

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 September 4, 2007

1 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
September 44:00 PM CDTEF0Goliad, TX0.130

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.