F1 tornado, Estero, Florida, January 24, 2000

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 mphthis tornado

   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

F1

Date

January 24, 2000

Touchdown

3:29 AM EST (08:29 UTC)

Path length

2.5 miles (4.0 km)

Path width

70 yards (64 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$500,000

County

Lee County

Touchdown point

26.430, -81.630

Lift-off point

26.430, -81.600

Record number

18

A tornado (F1) touched down approximately one mile southwest of Corkscrew road on Lazy D Farms road where it downed a few trees, caused minor damage to a weathered mobile home, slightly damaged two vehicles and killed two cows. The tornado continued northeast where it caused minor damage to three planes and a recreational vehicle in a hanger on Corkscrew Trace road.The tornado crossed Corkscrew road and caused moderate damage to a 3000 gallon water tank on the north side of the road. The water tank was moved nearly a thousand yards by the tornadic wind. The tornado proceeded northeast and caused minor to moderate damage to a couple of pole barns and destroyed a storage shed along Katydid Lane.The tornado caused minor to moderate damage to a few weathered mobile homes, pole barns and sheds along Wildcat road before it lifted and dissipated.A total of eight homes, four pole barns, four storage sheds, several cars, an airplane hanger and several trees, were damaged by the F1 tornado.

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 Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 05:51 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 Miami radar (KAMX), 151 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 08:28 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 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.