Tornadoes · United States · Florida · 1997

F0 tornado, Melbourne to Satellite Beach, Florida, November 13, 1997

From Melbourne to Satellite Beach, this F0 tornado ran 8.0 miles across Brevard County on November 13, 1997, touching down at 3:43 PM EST and reaching 50 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $10,000 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 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
November 13, 1997
Touchdown
3:43 PM EST (20:43 UTC)
Path length
8.0 miles (12.9 km)
Path width
50 yards (46 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$10,000
County
Brevard County
Touchdown point
28.080, -80.600
Lift-off point
28.170, -80.600
Record number
545

What the Weather Service recorded

A fast moving F0 tornado first touched down along Interstate Highway 95 near S.R. 518. The tornado moved rapidly to the east northeast damaging road signs, snapping limbs off of trees and damaging the housing around an airconditioning system on the roof of a grocery store in Melbourne. The tornado continued east northeast and crossed the Indian River and Banana River lagoons and moved over Satellite Beach where it produced minimal damage to tree limbs.

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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
20:36 UTC21:20 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningMLB
20:49 UTC21:20 UTCTornado 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 10:31 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.

Cape Canaveral, FL (KXMR), 12:00Z

8.7 hours before the tornado, 40 km from the path. November 13, 1997.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Cape Canaveral, FL at 12:00Z on 1997-11-13Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 680 joules per kilogram, CIN -42, lifted condensation level 716 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, Cape Canaveral, FL at 12:00Z on 1997-11-13The 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 210 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 47 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
680 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-42 J/kg
Surface CAPE
373 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
716 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
47 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
24 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
210 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
253 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.7
Supercell composite
6.0
0-3 km lapse rate
4.6 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Cape Canaveral, FL (KXMR), 00:00Z

3.3 hours after it, 40 km from the path. November 14, 1997.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Cape Canaveral, FL at 00:00Z on 1997-11-14Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 121 joules per kilogram, CIN -509, lifted condensation level 672 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, Cape Canaveral, FL at 00:00Z on 1997-11-14The 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 -21 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 39 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
121 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-509 J/kg
Surface CAPE
26 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
672 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
39 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
25 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-21 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
79 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.3
0-3 km lapse rate
3.5 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Melbourne Regional (MLB), 5 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
18:50 UTC78.873.4210° 10 kt1005.8-RA
19:50 UTC78.873.4220° 10 kt1005.1-RA
20:23 UTC78.875.2210° 8 kt1004.4
20:50 UTC7775.2200° 10 kt1004.4TSRA
21:50 UTC71.669.8230° 7 kt1005.8RA
22:11 UTC71.669.8270° 10 kt1005.4

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

The radar

The Melbourne radar (KMLB), 6 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:42 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

The other tornadoes of November 13, 1997

3 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
November 131:55 PM ESTF0Polk, FL0.210$70,000
November 133:30 PM PSTF0Merced, CA3.010$10,000
November 136:00 PM CSTF0Gulf, FL0.130$10,000

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.