Tornadoes · United States · Florida · 1997
F1 tornado, Camps Head, Florida, January 15, 1997
This F1 tornado ran 0.5 miles across Calhoun County on January 15, 1997, touching down at 11:45 PM CST and reaching 50 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $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.
F040 to 72 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
F173 to 112 mphthis tornado
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
- F1
- Date
- January 15, 1997
- Touchdown
- 11:45 PM CST (05:45 UTC)
- Path length
- 0.5 miles (0.8 km)
- Path width
- 50 yards (46 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $50,000
- County
- Calhoun County
- Touchdown point
- 30.530, -85.280
- Lift-off point
- 30.530, -85.280
- Record number
- 25
What the Weather Service recorded
A tornado completely destroyed a frame home badly injuring a man. Other nearby homes received minor damage. Scores of trees were snapped or uprooted.
A tornado pushed one mobile home over, damaged another and destroyed a shed. Numerous trees were snapped or uprooted.
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.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 05:28 UTC | 06:30 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | TAE |
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 06:18 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.
Tallahassee Rgnl, FL (KTLH), 00:00Z
5.8 hours before the tornado, 95 km from the path. January 16, 1997.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -15 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 753 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 43 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 32 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 258 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 408 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.8 K/km
Tallahassee Rgnl, FL (KTLH), 12:00Z
6.2 hours after it, 95 km from the path. January 16, 1997.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -67804 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 20 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 768 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 78 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 28 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- -144 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- -1 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.5 K/km
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 1997 tornado in FloridaEvery tornado in Florida since 1950Warnings in force in Florida nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of January 15, 1997
7 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January 15 | 4:49 PM CST | F1 | Lamar, MS | 7.0 | 80 | 2 | $100,000 | |
| January 15 | 5:30 PM CST | F1 | Pearl River, MS | 0.1 | 10 | |||
| January 15 | 9:45 PM CST | F1 | Santa Rosa, FL | 1.1 | 50 | $100,000 | ||
| January 15 | 10:49 PM CST | F1 | Walton, FL | 0.2 | 73 | $10,000 | ||
| January 15 | 11:12 PM CST | F1 | Washington, FL | 0.2 | 50 | 3 | $30,000 | |
| January 15 | 11:14 PM CST | F1 | Washington, FL | 0.2 | 50 | $50,000 | ||
| January 15 | 11:43 PM CST | F2 | Calhoun, FL | 0.5 | 150 | 1 | $50,000 |
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.