Tornadoes · United States · Florida · 2005
F0 tornado, Live Oak, Florida, July 10, 2005
This F0 tornado ran 10.0 miles across Suwannee County on July 10, 2005, touching down at 5:40 PM EDT and reaching 50 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.
F040 to 72 mphthis tornado
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
F173 to 112 mph
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
F4207 to 260 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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
- July 10, 2005
- Touchdown
- 5:40 PM EDT (21:40 UTC)
- Path length
- 10.0 miles (16.1 km)
- Path width
- 50 yards (46 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Suwannee County
- Touchdown point
- 30.330, -82.980
- Lift-off point
- 30.450, -83.050
- Record number
- 131
What the Weather Service recorded
At 540 p EDT, emergency management relayed numerous reports of a tornado that touched down in an open field across from Rosemary Baptist Church near County Road 132, just north of Live Oak. The next report of damage was recevied at 600 p EDT along the Suwannee River in NNW Suwannee County where numerous large trees were blown down and a carport roof was torn off in the Swannee Trails neighborhood. A barn roof was also blown off in the same area.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
26 minutes of warning. NWS JAX issued a tornado warning for this county at 21:14 UTC, 26 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 21:49 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 21:14 UTC | 21:49 UTC | Tornado Warning | JAX |
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 20:02 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.
Tallahassee Rgnl, FL (KTLH), 12:00Z
9.7 hours before the tornado, 123 km from the path. July 10, 2005.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 19 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -74 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 40 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 586 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 44 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 47 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 157 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 100 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.3 K/km
Tallahassee Rgnl, FL (KTLH), 00:00Z
2.3 hours after it, 123 km from the path. July 11, 2005.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 489 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -3 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 731 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 615 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 37 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 40 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 162 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 169 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.3
- Supercell composite
- 1.8
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.1 K/km
What was reported nearby
Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Report | Where | County | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21:40 UTC | TORNADO | 2 N Live Oak | Suwannee, FL | CONFIRMED TOUCHDOWN REPORTED BY THE PUBLIC.OCCURRED IN AN OPEN FIELD ACROSS FROM ROSEMARY BAPTIST CHURCH NEAR COUNTY ROAD 132. |
| 22:00 UTC | TORNADO | 5 Se Crossroads | Hamilton, FL | NUMEROUS LARGE TREES DOWN AND ONE CARPORT DAMAGED IN SUWANNEE RIVER ESTATES SUBDIVISION. LOCATED JUST NORTH OF THE SUWANNEE RIVER ON COUNTY ROAD 751. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2005 tornado in FloridaEvery tornado in Florida since 1950Warnings in force in Florida nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of July 10, 2005
5 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
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.