Tornadoes · United States · Florida · 2004

F0 tornado, Saint Johns County, Florida, September 26, 2004

This F0 tornado ran 2.0 miles across Saint Johns County on September 26, 2004, touching down at 2:55 PM EDT and reaching 1 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 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
September 26, 2004
Touchdown
2:55 PM EDT (18:55 UTC)
Path length
2.0 miles (3.2 km)
Path width
1 yards (1 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Saint Johns County
Touchdown point
29.770, -81.380
Lift-off point
29.720, -81.320
Record number
429

The warnings

21 minutes of warning. NWS JAX issued a tornado warning for this county at 18:34 UTC, 21 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 19:15 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
18:34 UTC19:15 UTCTornado WarningJAX
21:07 UTC21:45 UTCTornado WarningJAX
22:59 UTC23:30 UTCTornado WarningJAX
23:22 UTC23:45 UTCTornado WarningJAX
23:54 UTC00:45 UTCTornado WarningJAX

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 16:10 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.

Jacksonville, FL (KJAX), 12:00Z

6.9 hours before the tornado, 90 km from the path. September 26, 2004.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Jacksonville, FL at 12:00Z on 2004-09-26Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 1022 joules per kilogram, CIN -1, lifted condensation level 577 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLEL10008507005003002001001 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, Jacksonville, FL at 12:00Z on 2004-09-26The 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 245 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 36 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
1022 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-1 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1505 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
577 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
36 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
31 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
245 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
287 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
1.0
Supercell composite
6.4
0-3 km lapse rate
5.5 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Jacksonville, FL (KJAX), 00:00Z

5.1 hours after it, 90 km from the path. September 27, 2004.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Jacksonville, FL at 00:00Z on 2004-09-27Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 135 joules per kilogram, CIN 0, lifted condensation level 465 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLEL10008507005003002001001 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, Jacksonville, FL at 00:00Z on 2004-09-27The 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 30 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 21 knots.19395878Sfc1 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
135 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
0 J/kg
Surface CAPE
384 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
465 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
21 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
10 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
30 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
95 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
4.7 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Jacksonville radar (KJAX), 89 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 18:52 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.

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 262:30 AM EDTF1Brevard, FL0.320
September 262:51 AM EDTF1Brevard, FL0.550$350,000
September 2612:05 PM EDTF0Flagler, FL21.01
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.