Tornadoes · United States · Florida · 1992

F1 tornado, Orange County, Florida, February 25, 1992

This F1 tornado ran 0.5 miles across Orange County on February 25, 1992, touching down at 4:20 PM EST and reaching 50 yards wide. It killed nobody and injured 11, and did $50,000 to $500,000 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 mph

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

  2. F173 to 112 mphthis tornado

    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
F1
Date
February 25, 1992
Touchdown
4:20 PM EST (21:20 UTC)
Path length
0.5 miles (0.8 km)
Path width
50 yards (46 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
11
Property damage
$50,000 to $500,000
County
Orange County
Touchdown point
28.550, -81.400
Record number
42

The warnings

18 minutes of warning. NWS MLB issued a tornado warning for this county at 21:02 UTC, 18 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 21:45 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
21:02 UTC21:45 UTCTornado WarningMLB

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 07:19 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.

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

9.3 hours before the tornado, 88 km from the path. February 25, 1992.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Cape Canaveral, FL at 12:00Z on 1992-02-25Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 664 joules per kilogram, CIN -7, lifted condensation level 685 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 1992-02-25The 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 101 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 39 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
664 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-7 J/kg
Surface CAPE
804 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
685 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
39 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
26 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
101 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
151 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.3
Supercell composite
2.8
0-3 km lapse rate
5.5 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

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

2.7 hours after it, 88 km from the path. February 26, 1992.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Cape Canaveral, FL at 00:00Z on 1992-02-26Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 343 joules per kilogram, CIN -5, lifted condensation level 538 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 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 00:00Z on 1992-02-26The 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 131 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 37 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
343 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-5 J/kg
Surface CAPE
59 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
538 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
37 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
27 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
131 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
183 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
1.0
0-3 km lapse rate
4.9 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Orlando/Herndon (ORL), 7 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
19:20 UTC210° 8 kt1011.9
20:00 UTC7371190° 10 kt1011.5-RA
20:42 UTC250° 10 kt1011.2
21:00 UTC7369240° 7 kt1010.8-RA
21:24 UTC190° 7 kt1010.2
22:00 UTC7370230° 15 kt1010.5TSRA
22:09 UTC220° 14 kt1010.5
23:00 UTC7167220° 12 kt1010.5

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

The radar

The Melbourne radar (KMLB), 88 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:19 UTC.

Open the radar archive at this moment, over the track

Reflectivity and velocity, decoded from the Level II archive in the browser. Volumes take a few seconds to open the first time.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 1992 tornado in FloridaEvery tornado in Florida since 1950Warnings in force in Florida nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of February 25, 1992

2 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
February 255:57 PM ESTF1Nassau, FL0.5404$50,000 to $500,000
February 258:15 PM ESTF0Aiken, SC1.050$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.