Tornadoes · United States · Florida · 1996

F0 tornado, Howey In The Hills, Florida, March 30, 1996

This F0 tornado ran 1.0 miles across Lake County on March 30, 1996, touching down at 5:52 PM EST and reaching 20 yards wide. It killed nobody.

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
March 30, 1996
Touchdown
5:52 PM EST (22:52 UTC)
Path length
1.0 miles (1.6 km)
Path width
20 yards (18 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Lake County
Touchdown point
28.680, -81.800
Lift-off point
28.680, -81.800
Record number
116

What the Weather Service recorded

A small F0 tornado touched down briefly in an orange grove near the town of Howey-in-the-Hills.

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

The warnings

18 minutes of warning. NWS MLB issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:34 UTC, 18 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:00 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
21:51 UTC23:00 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningMLB
22:34 UTC23:00 UTCTornado WarningMLB
22:54 UTC23:30 UTCTornado WarningMLB
00:19 UTC01:15 UTCSevere Thunderstorm 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 05:42 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

10.9 hours before the tornado, 123 km from the path. March 30, 1996.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Tampa Bay, FL at 12:00Z on 1996-03-30Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 1385 joules per kilogram, CIN -19, lifted condensation level 813 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 1996-03-30The 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 -20 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 41 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
1385 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-19 J/kg
Surface CAPE
126 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
813 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
41 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
10 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-20 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
78 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
1.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.1 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

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

1.1 hours after it, 123 km from the path. March 31, 1996.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Tampa Bay, FL at 00:00Z on 1996-03-31Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 602 joules per kilogram, CIN -71, lifted condensation level 1170 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 1996-03-31The 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 124 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 45 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
602 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-71 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1281 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1170 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
45 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
19 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
124 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
214 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.3
Supercell composite
2.9
0-3 km lapse rate
6.9 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Tampa radar (KTBW), 123 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:49 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 March 30, 1996

7 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
March 303:35 PM ESTF0Polk, FL2.510
March 304:25 PM ESTF0Hernando, FL7.510$20,000
March 305:15 PM ESTF0Sumter, FL1.010$4,000
March 305:11 PM CSTF0Miller, AR0.525
March 306:55 PM CSTF0Union, AR0.525
March 308:46 PM ESTF1Brevard, FL7.04018$500,000
March 3010:15 PM CSTF0Richland Parish, LA0.525

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.