List of tornadoes in the outbreak of May 4–6, 2007

[1] The most destructive events took place on May 4 when an intense supercell thunderstorm produced a family of 22 tornadoes in central Kansas,[2] one of which inflicted EF5 damage across the small town of Greensburg (with a population of around 1,500).

[3][4] The event was precipitated by a nearly stationary upper-level trough along the Utah–Nevada border with three surface boundaries extending across Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas.

[4][5] A dry line formed over Kansas, Texas, and the Oklahoma Panhandle late on May 4 and became the focal point for extensive severe thunderstorm development.

The likelihood of widespread severe weather prompted the issuance of a high-risk convective outlook from the Storm Prediction Center.

[1] This resulted from more resilient caps inhibiting thunderstorm development and from the upper-level trough shifting east and weakening.

An aerial photograph of a town with all of the homes largely destroyed. Trees are stripped of their leaves or reduced to just their trunks.
The town of Greensburg, Kansas, suffered total devastation from the United States' first EF5 tornado in eight years.