Tornadoes · United States · Florida · 1988

F0 tornado, Pinellas County, Florida, July 25, 1988

This F0 tornado ran 1.0 miles across Pinellas County on July 25, 1988, touching down at 1:00 PM EDT and reaching 30 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
July 25, 1988
Touchdown
1:00 PM EDT (17:00 UTC)
Path length
1.0 miles (1.6 km)
Path width
30 yards (27 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$5,000 to $50,000
County
Pinellas County
Touchdown point
27.770, -82.670
Record number
394

The warnings

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
17:56 UTC18:20 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningTBW

Every warning and watch covering the touchdown point that day, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service products. Lead time is measured from the issue of the warning in force to the touchdown time in the database, both of which were recorded to the minute by different people.

The forecast that day

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 06:36 UTC.

SPC's Day 1 convective outlook as it stood when the tornado began, read at the touchdown point. The same archive is on the radar archive.

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.

Tampa Bay, FL (KTBW), 12:00Z

5.0 hours before the tornado, 27 km from the path. July 25, 1988.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Tampa Bay, FL at 12:00Z on 1988-07-25Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 2066 joules per kilogram, CIN -3, lifted condensation level 633 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, Tampa Bay, FL at 12:00Z on 1988-07-25The 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 17 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 13 knots.1939Sfc1 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
2066 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-3 J/kg
Surface CAPE
990 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
633 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
13 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
11 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
17 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
33 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
4.6 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Tampa Bay, FL (KTBW), 00:00Z

7.0 hours after it, 27 km from the path. July 26, 1988.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Tampa Bay, FL at 00:00Z on 1988-07-26Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 2085 joules per kilogram, CIN -14, lifted condensation level 897 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, Tampa Bay, FL at 00:00Z on 1988-07-26The 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 8 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 26 knots.1939Sfc1 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
2085 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-14 J/kg
Surface CAPE
2204 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
897 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
26 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
7 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
8 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
39 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
6.6 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

St Petersburg (SPG), 4 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
15:00 UTC847480° 6 kt1020.3
17:00 UTC847350° 6 kt1020
17:12 UTC90° 9 kt1020
18:00 UTC827290° 20 kt1019.6TS

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

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 1988 tornado in FloridaEvery tornado in Florida since 1950Warnings in force in Florida nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of July 25, 1988

3 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
July 256:34 PM CDTF1Cape Girardeau, MO0.250
July 257:50 PM EDTF0Lapeer, MI0.210
July 257:58 PM EDTF0Livingston, MI0.210

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.