F3 tornado, Intercession City to Christmas, Florida, February 22, 1998

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 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 mphthis tornado

   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

F3

Date

February 22, 1998

Touchdown

12:40 AM EST (05:40 UTC)

Path length

28.0 miles (45.1 km)

Path width

250 yards (229 m)

Deaths

25

Injuries

150

Property damage

$55 million

Counties

Orange and Osceola counties

Touchdown point

28.230, -81.480

Lift-off point

28.480, -80.900

Record number

893

The deadliest tornado of the outbreak was a category F3 that touched down initially one mile south of Intercession City. The tornado moved northeast at 45 mph and ripped through the town of Kissimmee killing 25 people. The hardest hit areas were the Morningside Acres mobile home community and the Ponderosa Recreational Vehicle Park. In all eight people were killed in recreational vehicles, fifteen in mobile homes and one in an automobile. The tornado continued northeast and moved into Orange County six miles north of St. Cloud. One hundred and fifty people were injured and over 1000 structures were damaged or destroyed.

The Kissimmee tornado moved into Orange County southeast of Orlando International Airport as a category F3. The tornado affected rural swampy areas, striking few structures except for lakeside neighborhoods on the shores of Lake Hart and Lake Mary Jane. The tornado lifted as it approached the St. Johns River on the east central border of Orange County in the Tosohatchee State Preserve.

The deaths

25 direct deaths are recorded for this tornado, each with what Storm Data knows of it.

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

18 minutes of warning. NWS MLB issued a tornado warning for this county at 05:22 UTC, 18 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 06:20 UTC.

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 Moderate Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 10:59 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.

Orlando International (MCO), 14 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Melbourne radar (KMLB), 59 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 05:40 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 1998 tornado in FloridaEvery tornado in Florida since 1950Warnings in force in Florida nowThe forecast where you are

9 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

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.