Tornadoes · United States · Florida · 2005

F0 tornado, Marathon, Florida, June 22, 2005

This F0 tornado ran 0.2 miles across Monroe County on June 22, 2005, touching down at 4:50 PM EDT and reaching 30 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $10,000 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
June 22, 2005
Touchdown
4:50 PM EDT (20:50 UTC)
Path length
0.2 miles (0.3 km)
Path width
30 yards (27 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$10,000
County
Monroe County
Touchdown point
24.700, -81.080
Lift-off point
24.700, -81.080
Record number
214

What the Weather Service recorded

Tornado touched down at F0 intensity along 52nd Street Gulf and had a skipping, curved path generally toward the east-southeast. The tornado continued through the Garden Club and across U.S. Highway 1. Numerous large limbs up to 12 inches in diameter and a few trees were downed in a narrow convergent path across the parking lots of a vacant establishment and a supermarket. Limbs were deposited along curving cyclonic paths from 50 to 150 yards from the original source trees. Numerous parking and stop signs were damaged and destroyed along the path. The damage path ended approximately 150 yards south of U.S. Highway 1 near Sombrero Beach Road. Estimated maximum winds of 65 mph on a narrow, intermittent path.

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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 20:07 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.

Key West, FL (KEYW), 12:00Z

8.8 hours before the tornado, 67 km from the path. June 22, 2005.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Key West, FL at 12:00Z on 2005-06-22Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 3342 joules per kilogram, CIN -4, lifted condensation level 707 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 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, Key West, FL at 12:00Z on 2005-06-22The 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 17 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 11 knots.1939Sfc1 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
3342 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-4 J/kg
Surface CAPE
3853 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
707 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
11 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
9 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
17 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
48 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
1.6
0-3 km lapse rate
6.3 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Key West, FL (KEYW), 00:00Z

3.2 hours after it, 67 km from the path. June 23, 2005.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Key West, FL at 00:00Z on 2005-06-23Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 171 joules per kilogram, CIN -112, lifted condensation level 1227 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 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, Key West, FL at 00:00Z on 2005-06-23The 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 -26 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 33 knots.1939Sfc1 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
171 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-112 J/kg
Surface CAPE
404 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1227 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
33 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
4 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-26 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
52 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
-0.0
Supercell composite
-0.1
0-3 km lapse rate
6.2 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Marathon (MTH), 4 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
18:53 UTC867470° 7 kt1017.3
19:53 UTC807220° 14 kt1016.9
20:12 UTC80.673.430° 17 kt211016.6VCTS
20:53 UTC7471300° 23 kt331017.3+TSRA FG
21:06 UTC71.669.8300° 19 kt271018.3+TSRA FG
21:39 UTC73.471.6330° 12 kt211018.3TSRA BR
21:53 UTC7572340° 11 kt191017.9TSRA BR
22:00 UTC75.271.6330° 12 kt191017.9-TSRA BR
22:26 UTC75.271.6330° 11 kt161017.6VCTS RA BR

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The radar

The Key West radar (KBYX), 64 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:50 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.

What was reported nearby

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

Time (UTC)ReportWhereCountyRemark
19:18 UTCTSTM WND GST 54Cudjoe KeyLower Keys In Monr, FL
20:50 UTCTORNADOMarathonMiddle Keys In Mon, FLF0 TORNADO WITH PATH WIDTH 30 YARDS AND INTERMITTENT PATH LENGTH 400 YARDS. THE TORNADO TOUCHED DOWN ALONG 52ND STREET GULF AND HAD A SKIPPING...CURVED PATH GENERALLY TOWARD THE EAST-SOUTHEAST. THE DAMAGE PATH ENDED ON T

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 June 22, 2005

1 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
June 221:20 PM CDTF0, PR0.55$10,000

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.