Tornadoes · United States · Florida · 1993

F0 tornado, Stuart, Florida, April 5, 1993

This F0 tornado ran 0.2 miles across Martin County on April 5, 1993, touching down at 4:15 AM 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
April 5, 1993
Touchdown
4:15 AM EDT (08:15 UTC)
Path length
0.2 miles (0.3 km)
Path width
30 yards (27 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$5,000 to $50,000
County
Martin County
Touchdown point
27.200, -80.250
Record number
113

What the Weather Service recorded

A small tornado briefly touched down at the intersection of Dixie Highway and Indian Street in Stuart damaging the roof of a U-Haul rental building, moving a U-Haul trailer 200 yards, and blew around signs and garbage cans.

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

The warnings

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

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 05:34 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.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 1993 tornado in FloridaEvery tornado in Florida since 1950Warnings in force in Florida nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of April 5, 1993

5 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
April 52:00 AM EDTF0Collier, FL0.110$5,000 to $50,000
April 53:00 AM EDTF0Hardee, FL0.230$500 to $5,000
April 53:15 AM EDTF0Highlands, FL0.250$5,000 to $50,000
April 54:05 AM EDTF0Okeechobee, FL0.130$5,000 to $50,000
April 54:30 AM EDTF1Broward, FL3.0502$50,000 to $500,000

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.