Tornadoes · United States · Florida · 1999

F0 tornado, Blackman, Florida, March 3, 1999

This F0 tornado ran 7.0 miles across Okaloosa County on March 3, 1999, touching down at 2:00 AM CST and reaching 30 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
March 3, 1999
Touchdown
2:00 AM CST (08:00 UTC)
Path length
7.0 miles (11.3 km)
Path width
30 yards (27 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$10,000
County
Okaloosa County
Touchdown point
30.920, -86.650
Lift-off point
30.920, -86.650
Record number
217

What the Weather Service recorded

A F0 tornado (winds 40 to 73 mph on the Fujita Scale) moved from west to east, nearly parallel to State Rd. 2 near the Blackman community. The only major structural damage was to a large chicken facility, west of Blackman. A pump house to one home was overturned. Numerous trees in the tornados path were blown down as well as power lines. Most of the time the circulation was aloft as a funnel cloud, but briefly touched down as a tornado about 7 times during its life span.

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
06:59 UTC08:15 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningMOB
08:09 UTC09:00 UTCTornado WarningMOB

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.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 1999 tornado in FloridaEvery tornado in Florida since 1950Warnings in force in Florida nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of March 3, 1999

5 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
March 31:30 AM CSTF1Santa Rosa, FL0.50$1.0 million
March 32:15 AM CSTF0Covington, AL2.020$60,000
March 311:30 AM CSTF0, FL0.210$10,000
March 35:35 PM ESTF1Dinwiddie, VA0.8017$150,000
March 38:30 PM ESTF0Adams, PA5.0100$30,000

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.