Tornadoes · United States · Florida · 1996
F0 tornado, Frostproof, Florida, April 30, 1996
This F0 tornado ran 11.0 miles across Polk County on April 30, 1996, touching down at 8:48 AM EDT and reaching 15 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $10,000 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.
F040 to 72 mphthis tornado
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
F173 to 112 mph
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
F4207 to 260 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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 30, 1996
- Touchdown
- 8:48 AM EDT (12:48 UTC)
- Path length
- 11.0 miles (17.7 km)
- Path width
- 15 yards (14 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $10,000
- County
- Polk County
- Touchdown point
- 27.750, -81.520
- Lift-off point
- 27.850, -81.400
- Record number
- 837
What the Weather Service recorded
A weak tornado sporatically touched down over rural semi-wooded farm land of eastern Polk county. The first touchdown leveled several large trees one mile northeast of Frostproof. A second touchdown occurred along Walk-In-The-Water Road, one-half mile south of State Road 60, where it removed the tin roofs of several sheds, snapped a few power poles and downed several large oak and pine trees. Most of the downed trees were either snapped half-way up from the base or uprooted.The weak tornado cross State Road 60 and briefly touched down near Tiger Lake where it downed a few large trees and then lifted and dissipated.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
56 minutes of warning. NWS TBW issued a tornado warning for this county at 11:52 UTC, 56 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 13:00 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11:52 UTC | 13:00 UTC | Tornado Warning | TBW |
| 13:04 UTC | 13:45 UTC | Tornado Warning | TBW |
| 13:15 UTC | 14:15 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | TBW |
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 Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 05:23 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
0.8 hours before the tornado, 93 km from the path. April 30, 1996.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 1059 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -8 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 554 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 541 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 31 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 35 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 225 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 299 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.9
- Supercell composite
- 5.1
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.2 K/km
Tampa Bay, FL (KTBW), 00:00Z
11.2 hours after it, 93 km from the path. May 1, 1996.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 7 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -51 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 38 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 639 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 24 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 4 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 13 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 59 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.5 K/km
The surface observations
Bartow (BOW), 36 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (kt) | Pressure (mb) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12:00 UTC | 72 | 68 | 180° 10 kt | 1013.9 | TSRA |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
The radar
The Melbourne radar (KMLB), 86 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 12:49 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 1996 tornado in FloridaEvery tornado in Florida since 1950Warnings in force in Florida nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of April 30, 1996
3 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
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.