Tornadoes · United States · Florida · 1973

F2 tornado, Orange County, Florida, January 28, 1973

This F2 tornado ran 2.7 miles across Orange County on January 28, 1973, touching down at 12:42 PM EST and reaching 300 yards wide. It killed nobody and injured 16, and did $500,000 to $5 million of property damage.

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 28, 1973
Touchdown
12:42 PM EST (17:42 UTC)
Path length
2.7 miles (4.3 km)
Path width
300 yards (274 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
16
Property damage
$500,000 to $5 million
County
Orange County
Touchdown point
28.520, -81.430
Lift-off point
28.530, -81.420
Record number
31

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.

Cape Canaveral, FL (KXMR), 12:00Z

5.7 hours before the tornado, 91 km from the path. January 28, 1973.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Cape Canaveral, FL at 12:00Z on 1973-01-28Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 268 joules per kilogram, CIN -36, lifted condensation level 643 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 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, Cape Canaveral, FL at 12:00Z on 1973-01-28The 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 98 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 63 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
268 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-36 J/kg
Surface CAPE
53 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
643 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
63 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
17 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
98 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
121 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.8
0-3 km lapse rate
5.0 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Orlando/Herndon (ORL), 9 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
16:00 UTC74.8468180° 10 kt1011.9
17:00 UTC7469180° 6 kt1010.5TSRA
17:28 UTC170° 5 kt1009.8
18:00 UTC7270260° 15 kt1009.8-TSRA
18:20 UTC250° 13 kt1009.1
19:00 UTC6965250° 12 kt1008.8-RA
19:32 UTC230° 11 kt1009.1

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

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 1973 tornado in FloridaEvery tornado in Florida since 1950Warnings in force in Florida nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of January 28, 1973

3 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
January 2811:35 AM ESTF1Pasco, FL2.0201$5,000 to $50,000
January 2812:15 PM ESTF2Osceola, FL14.01007$500,000 to $5 million
January 281:30 PM ESTF2Brevard, FL5.150$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.