F0 tornado, Zolfo Spgs, Florida, April 3, 2002

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

April 3, 2002

Touchdown

12:32 PM EST (17:32 UTC)

Path length

0.5 miles (0.8 km)

Path width

33 yards (30 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Hardee County

Touchdown point

27.470, -81.780

Lift-off point

27.480, -81.770

Record number

21

An upper-level disturbance, combined with warm and humid air near the surface, helped form a broken line of strong to severe thunderstorms over west central Florida, which propagated east through the area during the late morning and early afternoon hours. The event featured marginal severe wind gusts and some hail.Dime size hail fell at the intersection of Lois Avenue and Broad Street in the Pinecrest section of Tampa shortly after 11 AM. Winds intensified as the line organized farther inland, causing sporadic damage in Polk, Hardee, and Highlands Counties. The strongest cells were in Hardee County. A small tornado was witnessed by law enforcement officials near Zolfo Springs, with minor tree damage in a wooded area. Numerous small, and several large, tree limbs were downed in Zolfo Springs along West 66th Street, and dime size hail was reported, shortly after 1230 PM. In Polk County, observed 58 mph winds at Lakeland's Linder Field were followed by blown down large limbs and power lines in the city proper. A woman sustained a neck injury when a large limb crashed onto the roof of her vehicle. Several hundred customers were briefly without power after the storm. Other tree and line damage, including a few uprooted oaks, was noted from a separate storm cell in Fort Meade. Dime size hail was reported near Bartow and in downtown Lakeland. Most of the activity occurred in the county between noon and 1230 PM.As the line continued moving southeast, more damage was reported in Avon Park and Sebring (Highlands Co) around 1 PM. Gusty winds blew a carport roof off an Apartment Building along Lakeview Road in Sebring. Fallen trees also blocked vehicle access along a rural road (CR 634) in Highlands Hammock S.P. near Avon Park.

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 16:08 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 live radar over the trackEvery 2002 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.