Tornadoes · United States · Florida · 1998

F2 tornado, Osteen to Ariel, Florida, February 22, 1998

From Osteen to Ariel, this F2 tornado ran 5.0 miles across Volusia County on February 22, 1998, touching down at 12:45 AM EST and reaching 150 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $500,000 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 mph

    Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

  3. F2113 to 157 mphthis tornado

    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
F2
Date
February 22, 1998
Touchdown
12:45 AM EST (05:45 UTC)
Path length
5.0 miles (8.0 km)
Path width
150 yards (137 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$500,000
County
Volusia County
Touchdown point
28.850, -80.930
Lift-off point
28.900, -80.850
Record number
892

What the Weather Service recorded

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

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

AgeSexWhereKind
53MVehicle/Towed TrailerDirect

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

The warnings

31 minutes of warning. NWS MLB issued a tornado warning for this county at 05:14 UTC, 31 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 06:15 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
20:34 UTC21:40 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningMLB
03:22 UTC04:15 UTCTornado WarningMLB
04:20 UTC05:05 UTCTornado WarningMLB
05:14 UTC06:15 UTCTornado WarningMLB
05:21 UTC08:30 UTCFlash Flood 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 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 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

6.2 hours after it, 59 km from the path. February 23, 1998.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Cape Canaveral, FL at 12:00Z on 1998-02-23Temperature 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 -48672, lifted condensation level 953 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, Cape Canaveral, FL at 12:00Z on 1998-02-23The 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 31 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 66 knots.1939587897117136Sfc1 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
-48672 J/kg
Surface CAPE
61 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
953 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
66 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
37 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
31 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
75 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
4.6 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Melbourne radar (KMLB), 88 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 05:45 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 1998 tornado in FloridaEvery tornado in Florida since 1950Warnings in force in Florida nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of February 22, 1998

9 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
February 228:00 AM CSTF0Houston, AL0.350$70,000
February 223:45 PM ESTF0Putnam, FL0.230$4,000
February 225:05 PM ESTF0Charlton, GA0.530$10,000
February 225:20 PM ESTF1Brevard, FL1.050$200,000
February 229:50 PM ESTF0Sumter, FL0.130$20,000
February 2210:55 PM ESTF2Volusia, FL8.015013$4.0 million
February 2211:37 PM ESTF3Lake, FL18.0200370$15 million
February 2212:10 AM ESTF3Seminole, FL16.02001336$31 million
February 2212:40 AM ESTF3Orange, FL28.025025150$55 million

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.