Tornadoes · United States · Florida · 2004

F1 tornado, Micco, Florida, September 26, 2004

This F1 tornado ran 0.3 miles across Brevard County on September 26, 2004, touching down at 2:30 AM EDT and reaching 20 yards wide. It killed nobody.

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 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.

The record

Rating
F1
Date
September 26, 2004
Touchdown
2:30 AM EDT (06:30 UTC)
Path length
0.3 miles (0.5 km)
Path width
20 yards (18 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Brevard County
Touchdown point
27.900, -80.500
Lift-off point
27.900, -80.500
Record number
1717

What the Weather Service recorded

As the center of Hurricane Jeanne was coming on shore to the south, an F1 tornado-like event moved through the mobile home community of Barefoot Bay blowing down trees along a narrow well defined area surrounded by undamaged trees and mobile homes.

As the center of Hurricane Jeanne was coming on shore to the south, an F1 tornado-like event moved through the mobile home community of Barefoot Bay, severey damaging about a dozen mobile homes. The damage path moved from east to west, skipping over the residences near the Intracoastal Waterway and damaging the ones on the west side of the community.

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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 05:26 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 radar

The Melbourne radar (KMLB), 28 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 06:30 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.

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 September 26, 2004

8 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
September 262:51 AM EDTF1Brevard, FL0.550$350,000
September 2612:05 PM EDTF0Flagler, FL21.01
September 262:55 PM EDTF0Saint Johns, FL2.01
September 267:15 PM EDTF0Saint Johns, FL1.01
September 267:30 PM EDTF0Saint Johns, FL2.01
September 268:10 PM EDTF0Saint Johns, FL2.01
September 2611:55 PM EDTF0Clinch, GA1.01
September 261:40 AM EDTF0Bulloch, GA0.535

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.