Tornadoes · United States · Wisconsin · 2007
EF0 tornado, Jackson, Wisconsin, June 2, 2007
This EF0 tornado ran 0.0 miles across Washington County on June 2, 2007, touching down at 2:19 PM CDT and reaching 15 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.
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
- June 2, 2007
- Touchdown
- 2:19 PM CDT (19:19 UTC)
- Path length
- 0.0 miles (0.0 km)
- Path width
- 15 yards (14 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Washington County
- Touchdown point
- 43.292, -88.186
- Lift-off point
- 43.292, -88.186
- Record number
- 0706021319-01
What the Weather Service recorded
Isolated severe weather affected Washington County on June 2nd as a line of thunderstorms moved north/northeast through southern Wisconsin. On this day, an upper-level,cut-off low pressure was drifting slowly east through Minnesota. Sufficient vertical wind shear was present in spiral bands of convection in order to generate rotating updrafts in some cells.
A brief, weak tornado spun up about 2.12 miles south-southwest (198 degrees) of the city of Jackson, or about 2.4 miles north of the village of Richfield (just west of STH 45), or about 0.23 miles southwest (225 degrees) of the STH 45 overpass with Western Ave. It was stationary during its 20-30 seconds life-span, based on trained spotter accounts. It resulted in only matted-down grasses. No EF-Scale Damage Indicator (DI) could be used. Specific lat/lon info is: N43.29313 W88.19027. Estimated average path width was about 20 yards. Estimated wind speed is 56-61 knots (65-70 mph).
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.
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 16:41 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.
Green Bay/Straub, WI (KGRB), 12:00Z
7.3 hours before the tornado, 132 km from the path. June 2, 2007.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 150 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -40 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 2 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 713 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 24 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 21 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 36 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 96 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.1 K/km
Green Bay/Straub, WI (KGRB), 00:00Z
4.7 hours after it, 132 km from the path. June 3, 2007.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 297 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -4 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 323 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 694 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 29 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 11 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 58 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 92 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 6.3 K/km
The radar
The Milwaukee radar (KMKX), 47 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 19:17 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.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2007 tornado in WisconsinEvery tornado in Wisconsin since 1950Warnings in force in Wisconsin nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of June 2, 2007
10 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 2 | 6:35 PM CDT | EF0 | Lyon, MN | 0.5 | 100 | |||
| June 2 | 7:55 PM CDT | EF0 | Castro, TX | 0.2 | 30 | |||
| June 2 | 8:15 PM CDT | EF0 | Castro, TX | 4.0 | 300 | |||
| June 2 | 8:45 PM CDT | EF0 | Hancock, IL | 0.1 | 25 | $5,000 | ||
| June 2 | 9:14 PM CDT | EF0 | Lamb, TX | 0.1 | 100 | |||
| June 2 | 10:34 PM CDT | EF0 | Garza, TX | 0.8 | 100 | |||
| June 2 | 10:35 PM CDT | EF0 | Lamb, TX | 1.5 | 100 | |||
| June 2 | 10:40 PM CDT | EF0 | Hockley, TX | 0.8 | 100 | |||
| June 2 | 11:03 PM CDT | EF0 | Hockley, TX | 1.0 | 75 | $15,000 | ||
| June 2 | 12:40 AM CDT | EF0 | Gaines, TX | 1.0 | 50 |
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.