F1 tornado, Palmetto, Florida, July 1, 2001

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

July 1, 2001

Touchdown

4:31 PM EDT (20:31 UTC)

Path length

0.1 miles (0.2 km)

Path width

10 yards (9 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$100,000

County

Manatee County

Touchdown point

27.520, -82.580

Lift-off point

27.520, -82.580

Record number

340

National Weather Service damage survey concluded that a small F1 tornado briefly touched down at Jayson's Mini Storage, along the east side of U.S. Highway 41, northeast of Bayshore Road, in Palmetto, Florida.Visual observation of the damage site indicated that the tornado initially touched down and caused minor damage to a bill board sign on the east side of U.S. Highway 41, north of Jayson's Mini Storage. On the northern side of Jayson's Mini Storage, the tornado continued it's descent and briefly touched down where it lifted, tossed and demolished, a weathered travel trailer, approximately 40 yards to the south southwest from its original location. Two additional nearby weathered travel trailers were flipped over on their sides while a badly weathered storage trailer was severely damaged on it's north and west facing sides by the tornadic wind at the storage facility.The tornado then lifted and dissipated within a tenth of a mile from the initial touchdown point. However, small pieces of debris from the travel trailers, carried by the tornadic winds, were observed in a tall tree approximately 500 yards south southwest of the touchdown site.The tornado path width was estimated at ten yards at its widest point while its path length was estimated at less than a tenth of a mile. No human fatalities or injuries were reported. However, one animal, a dog that was housed near the site of the touchdown, was killed.Based on analysis of radar and satellite imagery at the time of the event, the tornado possibly formed as the result of sea breeze and multiple outflow boundary interaction from nearby shower and thunderstorm activity.

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 20:17 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.

Sarasota-Bradenton (SRQ), 13 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Tampa radar (KTBW), 27 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:31 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 2001 tornado in FloridaEvery tornado in Florida since 1950Warnings in force in Florida nowThe forecast where you are

4 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.