Tornadoes · United States · Florida · 2004

F0 tornado, Englewood, Florida, April 12, 2004

This F0 tornado ran 0.3 miles across Charlotte County on April 12, 2004, touching down at 7:05 AM EDT and reaching 20 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $30,000 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
April 12, 2004
Touchdown
7:05 AM EDT (11:05 UTC)
Path length
0.3 miles (0.5 km)
Path width
20 yards (18 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$30,000
County
Charlotte County
Touchdown point
26.970, -82.330
Lift-off point
26.970, -82.330
Record number
73

What the Weather Service recorded

An early morning squall line moved in from the Gulf of Mexico and caused widely scattered areas of wind gusts over 60 mph from the Sarasota/Bradenton Airport south along the Gulf Coast through Bonita Beach. One weak tornado was reported south of Englewood in Charlotte county.

A weak tornado associated with a squall line that moved in from the Gulf of Mexico damaged six units at the Village of Holiday Lakes off of State Road 771 in Englewood. An emergency management storm survey found the damage to be about 20 yards wide and three blocks long. No injuries were reported but the tornado peeled back the roof of one home and damaged car ports and porches. A total of six mobile homes suffered damage.

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.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
09:57 UTC10:45 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningTBW

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 Slight Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 05:59 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.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2004 tornado in FloridaEvery tornado in Florida since 1950Warnings in force in Florida nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of April 12, 2004

1 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
April 126:45 AM EDTF1Collier, FL2.050$100,000

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.