Over a period of 12 hours beginning around midday on Thursday 1 March 2007 and continuing into the early morning hours of Friday 2 March, 28 tornadoes were reported across the southeast U.S. The NWS Warning and Forecast Office (WFO) in Tallahassee, Florida, issued 57 warnings; 35 of which were tornado warnings. Nine tornadoes were reported across the WFO Tallahassee County Warning Area. Warnings were issued for two deadly tornadoes, which caused the loss of 15 lives; nine people died in Enterprise, Alabama and six more just north of Newton, Georgia.

This presentation will focus on several aspects of the event, including the weather situation, tornado outbreak, damage assessment, and office performance. The severe weather occurred in two stages. The first stage began in the early afternoon Thursday, along a warm front boundary. Tornadoes were reported in extreme southeast Alabama. One in particular, that struck Enterprise, Alabama, was rated an Enhanced Fujita (EF) 4. It resulted in nine casualties, including eight students and teachers at the Enterprise High School. A brief description of the resultant damage, and techniques used to assess the damage and arrive at the EF-4 scale rating, will be discussed. The second round of severe weather developed after sunset, in advance of a fast moving cold front. In the NWS Tallahassee County Warning Area the most significant event was an EF-2 tornado in Baker County, Georgia, that occurred shortly before midnight on Thursday, destroying a number of mobile homes, and killing six.

An analysis of the relative strength of the Alabama tornadoes versus the Georgia tornadoes will be presented, using radar analysis of time sections of rotational velocity of the mesocyclones observed during the event. It was interesting to note that the Enterprise tornado developed through the descending mode of tornado vortex signature evolution, whereas the southwest Georgia tornadoes that developed later that night were of the non-descending variety.