Tornadoes · United States · Florida · 1997

F1 tornado, Greensboro, Florida, January 16, 1997

This F1 tornado ran 0.5 miles across Gadsden County on January 16, 1997, touching down at 1:20 AM EST and reaching 73 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $1,000 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.

  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 mphthis tornado

    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
F1
Date
January 16, 1997
Touchdown
1:20 AM EST (06:20 UTC)
Path length
0.5 miles (0.8 km)
Path width
73 yards (67 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$1,000
County
Gadsden County
Touchdown point
30.570, -84.780
Lift-off point
30.570, -84.780
Record number
27

What the Weather Service recorded

A tornado touched down in a church cemetary downing trees and knocking over 20 or so tombstones. The church was only slightly damaged. The tornado crossed the road and snapped hundreds of trees in some thick woods to the east of the cemetary.

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)ExpiredProductOffice
06:08 UTC07:15 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningTAE

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 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

6.3 hours before the tornado, 50 km from the path. January 16, 1997.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Tallahassee Rgnl, FL at 00:00Z on 1997-01-16Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 0 joules per kilogram, CIN -15, lifted condensation level 753 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, Tallahassee Rgnl, FL at 00:00Z on 1997-01-16The 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 258 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 43 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
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

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Tallahassee Rgnl, FL (KTLH), 12:00Z

5.7 hours after it, 50 km from the path. January 16, 1997.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Tallahassee Rgnl, FL at 12:00Z on 1997-01-16Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 0 joules per kilogram, CIN -67804, lifted condensation level 768 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCL10008507005003002001001 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, Tallahassee Rgnl, FL at 12:00Z on 1997-01-16The 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 -144 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 78 knots.1939587897117Sfc1 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
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

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Tallahassee radar (KTLH), 47 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 06:17 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 1997 tornado in FloridaEvery tornado in Florida since 1950Warnings in force in Florida nowThe forecast where you are

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.