Tornadoes · United States · Florida · 2001

F0 tornado, Floral City, Florida, July 27, 2001

This F0 tornado ran 0.5 miles across Citrus County on July 27, 2001, touching down at 6:35 PM EDT and reaching 10 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $70,000 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
July 27, 2001
Touchdown
6:35 PM EDT (22:35 UTC)
Path length
0.5 miles (0.8 km)
Path width
10 yards (9 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$70,000
County
Citrus County
Touchdown point
28.730, -82.350
Lift-off point
28.730, -82.350
Record number
344

What the Weather Service recorded

An F0 tornado touched down and toppled a few large trees, several branches and power lines in the Heatherwood subdivision, 4.5 miles west southwest of Floral City, in eastern Citrus county. Most of the damage occurred along South Hammock Avenue, South Juneau Point and County Road 581 before the small tornado lifted and dissipated.

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.

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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:57 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.

Tampa Bay, FL (KTBW), 12:00Z

10.6 hours before the tornado, 114 km from the path. July 27, 2001.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Tampa Bay, FL at 12:00Z on 2001-07-27Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 1418 joules per kilogram, CIN -34, lifted condensation level 875 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 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, Tampa Bay, FL at 12:00Z on 2001-07-27The 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 -19 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 7 knots.1939Sfc1 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
1418 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-34 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1175 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
875 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
7 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
7 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-19 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
-20 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
4.5 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Tampa Bay, FL (KTBW), 00:00Z

1.4 hours after it, 114 km from the path. July 28, 2001.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Tampa Bay, FL at 00:00Z on 2001-07-28Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 907 joules per kilogram, CIN -44, lifted condensation level 1059 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 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, Tampa Bay, FL at 00:00Z on 2001-07-28The 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 -16 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 11 knots.193958Sfc1 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
907 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-44 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1365 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1059 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
11 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
10 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-16 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
7 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.6 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Brooksville (Asos) (BKV), 30 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
20:37 UTC87.878.8230° 10 kt1020VCTS
20:53 UTC8372190° 12 kt181020.3VCTS
21:04 UTC80.669.8200° 16 kt221020VCTS
21:53 UTC767230° 9 kt1020.7-TSRA
22:42 UTC73.471.610° 8 kt1020.7-RA
22:53 UTC737210° 6 kt1020.7VCTS -RA
23:17 UTC73.471.6320° 5 kt1020VCTS -RA
23:29 UTC73.471.6 3 kt1020.7-RA
23:40 UTC73.471.690° 5 kt1020.7-RA
23:53 UTC73720° 0 kt1020.7-RA

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

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2001 tornado in FloridaEvery tornado in Florida since 1950Warnings in force in Florida nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of July 27, 2001

6 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
July 276:40 PM CDTF0Rawlins, KS0.250
July 277:05 PM CDTF1Lincoln, SD1.085$400,000
July 277:43 PM CDTF0Minnehaha, SD1.050$10,000
July 277:54 PM CDTF0Lincoln, SD0.450
July 278:12 PM CDTF0Lincoln, SD0.150
July 2712:17 AM CDTF0Rawlins, KS0.550

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.