Tornadoes · United States · Florida · 1962

F2 tornado, Okaloosa County, Florida, January 5, 1962

This F2 tornado ran 2.5 miles across Okaloosa County on January 5, 1962, touching down at 4:10 PM GMT-6 and reaching 100 yards wide. It killed nobody.

The rating scale

Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.

  1. F040 to 72 mph

    Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

  2. F173 to 112 mph

    Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

  3. F2113 to 157 mphthis tornado

    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. F3158 to 206 mph

    Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.

  5. F4207 to 260 mph

    Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

  6. F5261 to 318 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
F2
Date
January 5, 1962
Touchdown
4:10 PM GMT-6 (22:10 UTC)
Path length
2.5 miles (4.0 km)
Path width
100 yards (91 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Okaloosa County
Touchdown point
30.770, -86.600
Record number
2

What the Weather Service recorded

The deaths

1 direct deaths are recorded for this tornado, each with what Storm Data knows of it.

AgeSexWhereKind
Direct

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

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.

Eglin AFB/Valpar, FL (KVPS), 12:00Z

10.2 hours before the tornado, 34 km from the path. January 5, 1962.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Eglin AFB/Valpar, FL at 12:00Z on 1962-01-05Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 0 joules per kilogram, CIN -10451, lifted condensation level 805 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Eglin AFB/Valpar, FL at 12:00Z on 1962-01-05The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 182 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 55 knots.1939587897Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-10451 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
805 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
55 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
22 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
182 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
258 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
1.8 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Eglin AFB/Valpar, FL (KVPS), 00:00Z

1.8 hours after it, 34 km from the path. January 6, 1962.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Eglin AFB/Valpar, FL at 00:00Z on 1962-01-06Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 41 joules per kilogram, CIN -49, lifted condensation level 441 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Eglin AFB/Valpar, FL at 00:00Z on 1962-01-06The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 54 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 39 knots.193958Sfc1 km3 km6 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
41 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-49 J/kg
Surface CAPE
16 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
441 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
39 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
14 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
54 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
157 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.1
0-3 km lapse rate
4.1 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Crestview/Bob Sikes (CEW), 8 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
21:00 UTC6564158° 16 kt1010.8-RA
22:00 UTC6666158° 18 kt1010.8FZFG -RA
23:00 UTC6565248° 15 kt1011.5TS FZFG -RA
00:00 UTC6464248° 5 kt1011.5TS -RA

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

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 1962 tornado in FloridaEvery tornado in Florida since 1950Warnings in force in Florida nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of January 5, 1962

6 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
January 54:10 PM GMT-6F2Okaloosa, FL2.5100130$500,000 to $5 million
January 54:30 PM GMT-6F2Covington, AL0.110$500 to $5,000
January 55:00 PM GMT-6F2Okaloosa, FL0.177$500 to $5,000
January 55:30 PM GMT-6F2Pike, AL2.010$5,000 to $50,000
January 511:00 PM GMT-5F1Early, GA1.0800$500 to $5,000
January 510:30 PM GMT-6F1Houston, AL5.110$5,000 to $50,000

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.