F2 tornado, Tampa, Florida, December 7, 1996

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 mph

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. F2113 to 157 mphthis tornado

   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.

Rating

F2

Date

December 7, 1996

Touchdown

2:58 PM EST (19:58 UTC)

Path length

2.0 miles (3.2 km)

Path width

83 yards (76 m)

Deaths

1

Injuries

0

Property damage

$100,000

County

Hillsborough County

Touchdown point

27.830, -82.300

Lift-off point

27.830, -82.300

Record number

980

A short-lived but strong tornado touched down one eighth of a mile east of Interstate 75 and one half mile north of Big Bend Road in Riverview where it snapped a dozen tree tops. The tornado moved east and descended into the Cowley Cove mobile home complex where it widened to 250 feet and damaged nine mobile homes and snapped an additional dozen trees.Three mobile homes were completely leveled, two were severely damaged, one moderately damaged and three incurred minor damage, all on Cowley Cove Court. One human fatality, a 50 year old male, and three dogs, occurred when the occupants mobile home was lifted up by the tornadic winds and tossed nearly a 100 feet from its foundation where it disentegrated on impact. At least five parked vehicles where damaged by the tornado along with several sheds and outbuildings. Most of the damage occurred along a 3/16 mile path in the Cowley Cove mobile home complex before it lifted, moved east and sporatically touched down in rural southern Hillsborough county. The tornado dissipated nearly two miles east of it's initial touchdown north of Dixon Drive.Of note, a parked undrivable vehicle that was in the direct path of the tornado had most of it's contents sucked from the hatchback storage compartment including a removed 100 pound transmission.Inspection of the vehicle found that the hatchback skin was buckled, bowed and pushed outward from the inside of the vehicle by the transmission casing that eventually smashed upward and out through the rear hatchback window.

The deaths

1 direct deaths are recorded for this tornado, each with what Storm Data knows of it.

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

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 12:37 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 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.

Macdill Afb/Tampa (MCF), 22 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Tampa radar (KTBW), 17 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 19:55 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.

The live radar over the trackEvery 1996 tornado in FloridaEvery tornado in Florida since 1950Warnings in force in Florida nowThe forecast where you are

2 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

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.

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.