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December 2007                                                                                              Volume 13 - Number 3

Summary of Tornado Season in 2007

By Sachiko Nagase

Wikipedia reports that there were 1275 tornadoes in the U.S. (of which 564 were confirmed) as of November 7, 2007.According to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center (http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/torn/2007deadlytorn.html), there were 25 killer tornadoes and reported fatalities were 79 in 2007 as of October 21, 2007. 
The first storm of the year was on January 4 in LA, MS, and AL, which killed 2 people in Lydia, LA.  This was the only killer tornado of the month, while 21 of 29 reported tornadoes were confirmed.
In February, 47 of 89 reported tornadoes were confirmed, of which 3 were killer tornadoes. On February 2 in FL, 13 people were killed with a scale of F3 in Paisley/Deland, FL while on the same day 8 people were killed in Lady Lake, FL. The total number of people killed in tornadoes was 22.

March was the biggest tornado month of the year. Out of 216 reported tornadoes, 182 were confirmed and 10 were killer tornadoes killing 27 people. 9 people were killed on March 1 in Enterprise, AL, and 6 were killed on the same day in Northnewton, GA.

In April, 90 out of 141 reported were confirmed to be tornadoes.  3 were identified as killer tornadoes, recording 9 fatalities. The biggest damage was reported on April  24 in Eagle Pass, TX, killing 7 people.
May was another big tornado month in 2007. At least 110 were confirmed tornadoes while over 282 were reported. The count for killer tornadoes was 4, recording 13 fatalities. The biggest tornado was reported and confirmed in May as well. On May 4, 10 people were killed with a tornado scale of F5 in Greensburg, KS.
June and July were quiet in terms of killer tornadoes. No fatalities were reported in these months. There were 149 reported tornadoes and 45 were confirmed in June, and there were 50 reported while only 19 were confirmed in July. In August, 1 killer tornado was reported with 1 fatality, while 38 out of 77 reported tornadoes were confirmed. In September, 24 out of 58 reported tornadoes were confirmed, yet no killer tornado was identified.

In October, 68 out of 115 reported tornadoes were confirmed and 3 were recorded as killer tornadoes killing 5 people in total. The official record on ANOAA ends in October.
The state with most killer tornadoes was Kansas killing 13 people while Florida recorded the most number of fatalities with 21 people in 2 tornadoes. There were 9 tornadoes of scale of F3 which killed 35 people. There was one F5 tornado killing 10 people in just one time.