Tornadoes · United States · Florida · 1976

F0 tornado, Putnam County, Florida, May 15, 1976

This F0 tornado ran 0.3 miles across Putnam County on May 15, 1976, touching down at 9:30 AM EDT and reaching 10 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $5,000 to $50,000 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 mphthis tornado

    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 mph

    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
F0
Date
May 15, 1976
Touchdown
9:30 AM EDT (13:30 UTC)
Path length
0.3 miles (0.5 km)
Path width
10 yards (9 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$5,000 to $50,000
County
Putnam County
Touchdown point
29.480, -81.670
Record number
390

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.

Jacksonville, FL (KAYS), 12:00Z

1.5 hours before the tornado, 113 km from the path. May 15, 1976.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Jacksonville, FL at 12:00Z on 1976-05-15Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 14 joules per kilogram, CIN -16, lifted condensation level 595 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, Jacksonville, FL at 12:00Z on 1976-05-15The 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 279 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 35 knots.19395878Sfc1 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
14 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-16 J/kg
Surface CAPE
153 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
595 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
35 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
39 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
279 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
372 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
1.9
0-3 km lapse rate
4.8 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Jacksonville, FL (KAYS), 00:00Z

10.5 hours after it, 113 km from the path. May 16, 1976.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Jacksonville, FL at 00:00Z on 1976-05-16Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 1134 joules per kilogram, CIN -23, lifted condensation level 896 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, Jacksonville, FL at 00:00Z on 1976-05-16The 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 90 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 44 knots.19395878Sfc1 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
1134 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-23 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1422 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
896 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
44 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
17 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
90 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
77 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.5
Supercell composite
3.2
0-3 km lapse rate
6.2 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 1976 tornado in FloridaEvery tornado in Florida since 1950Warnings in force in Florida nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of May 15, 1976

10 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
May 152:20 AM EDTF2Orangeburg, SC3.8403$50,000 to $500,000
May 153:30 AM EDTF2Richland, SC3.84013$50,000 to $500,000
May 1510:30 AM EDTF1Darlington, SC6.930$50,000 to $500,000
May 1511:45 AM EDTF2Anson, NC12.8674$5,000 to $50,000
May 151:10 PM EDTF2Montgomery, NC18.84007$500,000 to $5 million
May 152:00 PM EDTF0Iredell, NC0.110
May 154:00 PM EDTF1Amherst, VA1.033$500 to $5,000
May 155:50 PM EDTF2Robeson, NC10.13334$50,000 to $500,000
May 156:35 PM EDTF1Pittsylvania, VA1.533$500 to $5,000
May 157:50 PM CDTF0Champaign, IL0.110$50 to $500

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.