F0 tornado, Rockledge, Florida, October 25, 2001

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

October 25, 2001

Touchdown

4:55 PM EDT (20:55 UTC)

Path length

0.3 miles (0.5 km)

Path width

40 yards (37 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

1

Property damage

$70,000

County

Brevard County

Touchdown point

28.320, -80.720

Lift-off point

28.320, -80.720

Record number

473

An F0 tornado touched down a few hundred feet west of the shore of the Intracoastal Waterway between Rockledge and Palm Shores. The tornado moved west producing damage to a condominium complex. Twenty five units received slight roof damage. Street signs and small trees were blown down. A back porch enclosure and a pool enclosure were destroyed. The tornado moved west over Highway US 1 near Viera Boulevard as it lifted. A small sedan was overturned injuring a woman.

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 19:51 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.

NWS Melbourne, FL wrote its last area forecast discussion before the tornado touched down at Oct 25, 3:00 PM EDT, 1 hour 55 minutes earlier.

EAST CENTRAL FLORIDA FORECAST DISCUSSION
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE MELBOURNE FL
300 PM EDT THU OCT 25 2001

REMNANTS OF PERSISTENT CONVERGENCE BOUNDARY OVER SOUTHERNMOST CWA
AND PREFRONTAL TROUGH OVER NORTHERN COUNTIES BOTH SPAWNING SCATTERED
CONVECTION AT THIS TIME. BOUNDARIES WILL CONTINUE TO WORK SOUTH
AHEAD OF FRONT AND WILL INCLUDE SCATTERED POPS THIS EVENING SOUTH
HALF OF FORECAST AREA...SLIGHT CHANCE EARLY EVENING POPS FOR
ORLANDO/CAPE CANAVERAL AREA...AND DRY NORTHERNMOST COUNTIES.
ISOLATED SPOTS OVER SOUTHERN HALF OF CWA MAY SEE EXCESSIVE RAINFALL
TOTALS DUE TO SLOW MOVEMENT OF STORMS ALONG BOUNDARY WITHIN AREA OF
HIGH PW.

MODELS REMAIN CONSISTENT WITH FROPA TIMING...REACHING NORTHERN CWA A
LITTLE BEFORE MIDNIGHT AND LAKE OKEECHOBEE AREA TOWARDS DAYBREAK
FRIDAY. COOLER/BREEZY CONDITIONS WILL BEGIN TO ADVECT INTO NORTHERN
HALF OF CWA AFTER MIDNIGHT...WITH BRUNT OF CAA OVER THE SOUTHERN
PORTIONS FRIDAY/FRIDAY NIGHT. VERY DRY AIR WILL FOLLOW THE
FRONT...WITH PRECIPITABLE WATER VALUES ABOVE 2 INCHES TODAY BEING
REPLACED BY VALUES NEAR ONE HALF INCH FRIDAY AND APPROACHING ONE
QUARTER INCH OVER THE WEEKEND. LIKEWISE...TEMPS WILL FALL
SIGNIFICANTLY...WITH MAXS SOME 15-20 DEGREES COOLER FRIDAY AND
SATURDAY. FWC/AVN MOS TEMP GUIDANCE SIMILAR...AND STILL SHOWING
MINOR DOWNWARD TREND LATER PERIODS. SUNDAY MORNING MINS LOOK TO BE
THE COLDEST PRIOR TO MODIFYING EFFECTS OF VEERING WINDS.

EXTENDED...AS STRONG SURFACE ANTICYCLONE MOVES EAST TOWARDS MID
ATLANTIC/NEW ENGLAND...PRESSURE GRADIENT WILL REMAIN TIGHT OVER
CENTRAL FLORIDA. WINDS WILL GRADUALLY VEER TO ONSHORE
COMPONENT...ALLOWING LOW LEVEL WARMTH/MOISTURE TO RETURN BY
MID-WEEK. WILL CONTINUE MODIFICATION TREND OF TEMPS...ALONG WITH
RETURNING CLOUDINESS...AND INCREASING CHANCE FOR COASTAL SHOWERS
SE-MOST COUNTIES. LATER FORECASTS MAY NEED TO INCREASE COVERAGE AND
TIMING OF SHOWERS AS CONFIDENCE OF MOISTURE RETURN IS GAINED.

MARINE...WILL HEADLINE SMALL CRAFT ADVISORY TONIGHT AS WINDS SHOULD
SHIFT AND WIND/SEAS RESPOND QUICKLY AS FRONT PROGRESSES SOUTHWARD
OVERNIGHT. EXTENDED DURATION OF SCA CONDITIONS LIKELY AS N/NE
GRADIENT FLOW HOLDS STRONG INTO NEXT WEEK.

FIRE WX...HIGH CONFIDENCE REGARDING LONG DURATION OF CRITICAL RH
WITH STRONG/GUSTY WINDS FRIDAY ACROSS NORTH HALF OF REGION SO HAVE
UPGRADED TO RED FLAG WARNING. WILL LEAVE/RAISE FIRE WEATHER WATCH
SOUTHERN COUNTIES AS DRY AIR SPREADS SOUTH DURING THE DAY...AND
DURATION OF CRITICAL RH APPEARS MARGINAL AT THIS TIME. THREAT FOR
FIRE WX CONDITIONS WILL CONTINUE INTO THE WEEKEND...AND WILL RAISE A
WATCH FOR ALL COUNTIES FOR SATURDAY AS WELL.

COORDINATED WITH JAX/TBW.

DAB UU 060/072 049/069 045 65-00
MCO UU 062/074 050/071 046 65200
MLB UU 065/076 053/072 050 65300

.MLB...SMALL CRAFT ADVISORY TONIGHT FLAGLER BCH-JUPITER
INLET.
    ...RED FLAG WARNING FRIDAY FOR LAKE...VOLUSIA...SEMINOLE...
       ORANGE...OSCEOLA...BREVARD COUNTIES.
    ...FIRE WEATHER WATCH FRIDAY FOR OKEECHOBEE...INDIAN RIVER...
       SAINT LUCIE....AND MARTIN COUNTIES.
    ...FIRE WEATHER WATCH ALL EAST CENTRAL FLORIDA COUNTIES SATURDAY.

PUBLIC/MARINE...SPRATT
AVIATION/FIRE WX...BRAGAW

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 Melbourne radar (KMLB), 24 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:52 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

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.