F3 tornado, Longwood to Ariel, 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

12:10 AM EST (05:10 UTC)

Path length

16.0 miles (25.7 km)

Path width

200 yards (183 m)

Deaths

13

Injuries

36

Property damage

$31 million

Counties

Seminole and Volusia counties

Touchdown point

28.700, -81.350

Lift-off point

28.800, -81.150

Record number

890

The Seminole County category F3 tornado was produced by the same supercell that produced the Winter Garden tornado. It initially set down near Longwood and moved northeast at 45 mph. The tornado passed through several neighborhhoods in the southeast portion of Sanford killing 12 people in mobile homes and injuring 70. It continued northeast and crossed into Volusia County 5 miles east of Sanford. The near 200 mph winds of the tornado damaged or destroy 625 structures.

The Sanford tornado crossed into Volusia County near Highway 46 and the St. Johns River where it killed a 53 year old man in a recreational vehicle at a fish camp. The tornado continued northeast for 2 miles and dissipated in a rural part of south Volusia County.

The same supercell that produced the Sanford tornado produced an F2 tornado that touched down just west of Interstate 95 about 5 miles west of Oak Hill. The tornado moved northeast at 45 mph blowing down trees destroying two barns and damaging 10 mobile homes and 2 houses. The tornado lifted at the town of Ariel at U.S. Highway 1.

The deaths

13 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.

14 minutes of warning. NWS MLB issued a tornado warning for this county at 04:56 UTC, 14 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 05:55 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.

The Melbourne radar (KMLB), 92 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 05:10 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.