F0 tornado, Pelican Marsh to Corkscrew Swamp, Florida, April 14, 1997

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.

Rating

F0

Date

April 14, 1997

Touchdown

3:05 PM EDT (19:05 UTC)

Path length

4.0 miles (6.4 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$200,000

County

Collier County

Touchdown point

26.250, -81.770

Lift-off point

26.320, -81.570

Record number

126

TORNADO MAY HAVE BEEN A WATERSPOUT THAT MOVED ONSHORE. AT 1405 PM COLLIER COUNTY SHERIFFS OFFICE REPORTED A TORNADO ON THE GROUND.INITIAL TOUCHDOWN 26.15.29 NORTH AND 81.46.11 WEST. THREE EYEWITNESSES REPORTED SEEING A ROTATING FUNNEL WHILE OTHERS, SOME WITHIN A COUPLE HUNDRED FEET, REPORTED NO FUNNEL BUT A WALL OF WIND STRIKING THEIR HOMES. TORNADO AND WIND DAMAGE FROM VICTORIA PARK TO PELICAN STRAND IN NORTH NAPLES. AT VICTORIA PARK DAMAGE WAS 100YARDS WIDE IN A TWISTED DAMAGE PATTERN. AT FOUR SEASONS DAMAGE PATTERN WAS 300 YARDS WIDE MOSTLY IN A NORTHEAST DIRECTION.COLLIER COUNTY EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT OFFICIALS SAID 22 STRUCTURESRECIEVED MINOR DAMAGE. REGENT PARK...7 STRUCTURES...ROOF SHINGLESMISSING, TREES DOWN. BOCA PALMS...3 STRUCTURES...SCREEN DAMAGE.VICTORIA PARK...1 STRUCTURE...MINOR ROOF DAMAGE. FOUR SEASONS...4 SCREENED LANAIS...1 STORAGE SHED. PELICAN MARSH...LANDSCAPE DAMAGE. CRESCENT LAKES...2 MINOR ROOF DAMAGE...4 COLLAPSED SCREENENCLOSURES. AT 1414 PM SHERIFFS AGAIN REPORTED THE TORNADO ON THE GROUND NEAR IMMOKALEE ROAD AND I75. TORNADO LAST SEEN AT 1435 PMOVER CORKSCREW SWAMP.

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

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

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 Storm Prediction Center had this point in a General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 05:33 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.

The Miami radar (KAMX), 146 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 19:02 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 1997 tornado in FloridaEvery tornado in Florida since 1950Warnings in force in Florida nowThe forecast where you are

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.