F0 tornado, Palm Harbor, Florida, August 12, 2000

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.

Rating

F0

Date

August 12, 2000

Touchdown

1:50 PM EDT (17:50 UTC)

Path length

2.3 miles (3.7 km)

Path width

10 yards (9 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$500,000

County

Pinellas County

Touchdown point

28.100, -82.780

Lift-off point

28.100, -82.750

Record number

495

A waterspout moved onshore as a small F0 tornado, estimated maximum winds of 60 to 70 mph, at Carlyle Circle on Indian Bluff Island, two miles northwest of Palm Harbor. The micro sized tornado moved southeast and caused sporadic roof tile, lanai, boat dock and tree damage along Arrow and Carlyle Drives. The tornado continued southeast and caused sporadic roof tile and tree damage along Phillips Way. The small tornado continued southeast and destroyed the rear lanai of a home and caused structural damage to the second floor lanai and rear roof of a second home at the intersection of Ocean View Avenue and the Pinellas Trail.The tornado track shifted slightly to an east-southeast direction and crossed U.S. Highway Alternate 19 at the intersection of De Soto Boulevard where it caused sporadic tree and roof tile damage. The micro sized tornado damage path shrank to less than 10 yards wide as it moved over a heavily tree filled subdivision north of County Road 816 (Alderman Road). The tornado snapped several pine trees and toppled a few large oak trees along a narrow path that traversed Enniswood Parkway, Enisgrove Drive North, Glenside Avenue, Glenwood Court, Crestwood Lane, Harvest Moon Drive, Rolling Woods Drive, Eaglenest, Lepprechaun Lane, Pine Hill Road before it lifted and dissipated near the intersection of Alderman and Belcher Roads.

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

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.

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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 16:45 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.

Saint Petersburg (PIE), 22 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The live radar over the trackEvery 2000 tornado in FloridaEvery tornado in Florida since 1950Warnings in force in Florida nowThe forecast where you are

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.