Tornadoes · United States · Florida · 2005

F0 tornado, Rockledge, Florida, October 23, 2005

This F0 tornado ran 3.0 miles across Brevard County on October 23, 2005, touching down at 9:30 PM EDT and reaching 40 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $50,000 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
October 23, 2005
Touchdown
9:30 PM EDT (01:30 UTC)
Path length
3.0 miles (4.8 km)
Path width
40 yards (37 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$50,000
County
Brevard County
Touchdown point
28.330, -80.720
Lift-off point
28.350, -80.720
Record number
1191

What the Weather Service recorded

A long-lived tropical rain band rotating thunderstorm from Hurricane Wilma moved north through Brevard County and briefly touched down in north Rockledge and Cocoa. The tornado destroyed a porch at a restaurant and damaged the roof of an apartment building and blew out transformers. The tornado moved northeast across the intracoastal waterway and destroyed power transformers as it came on shore about a mile north of US Highway 520.

From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.

The warnings

33 minutes of warning. NWS MLB issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:57 UTC, 33 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:45 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
23:29 UTC00:15 UTCTornado WarningMLB
00:12 UTC01:00 UTCTornado WarningMLB
00:57 UTC01:45 UTCTornado WarningMLB
01:41 UTC02:30 UTCTornado WarningMLB
08:26 UTC09:00 UTCTornado WarningMLB
10:55 UTC12:00 UTCTornado WarningMLB
11:40 UTC12:30 UTCTornado WarningMLB
14:26 UTC18:30 UTCFlash Flood WarningMLB

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 00:45 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.

Cape Canaveral, FL (KXMR), 00:00Z

1.5 hours before the tornado, 26 km from the path. October 24, 2005.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Cape Canaveral, FL at 00:00Z on 2005-10-24Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 2790 joules per kilogram, CIN -2, lifted condensation level 614 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, Cape Canaveral, FL at 00:00Z on 2005-10-24The 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 103 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 45 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
2790 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-2 J/kg
Surface CAPE
3993 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
614 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
45 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
16 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
103 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
83 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
1.8
Supercell composite
8.2
0-3 km lapse rate
5.8 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Cape Canaveral, FL (KXMR), 12:00Z

10.5 hours after it, 26 km from the path. October 24, 2005.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Cape Canaveral, FL at 12:00Z on 2005-10-24Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 181 joules per kilogram, CIN -8, lifted condensation level 678 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, Cape Canaveral, FL at 12:00Z on 2005-10-24The 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 49 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 44 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
181 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-8 J/kg
Surface CAPE
930 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
678 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
44 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
9 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
49 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
119 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.5
0-3 km lapse rate
6.1 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Melbourne radar (KMLB), 26 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:27 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
01:30 UTCTORNADORockledgeBrevard, FLEL CHAROS RESTAURANT ON FORD AVE. REPORT OF ROOF OFF BUILDING.
01:41 UTCTORNADOCocoa BeachBrevard, FLPUBLIC REPORT OF A TORNADO ON THE HUBERT HUMPHREY BRIDGE. NEWS REPORTS OF BLOWING TRANSFORMERS ON THE BRIDGE.
01:43 UTCTORNADORockledgeBrevard, FLCOCOA VILLAGE/ROCKLEDGE AREA. DAMAGE TO HEAVY WOOD ROOFING. DEBRIS INCLUDES PLYWOOD, THICK BOARDS, TAR PAPER, ALUMINUM SIDING BETWEEN 943PM AND 947PM.
01:47 UTCTORNADOCocoaBrevard, FLCHANNEL 13 TV REPORT CONTINUED IN THE COCOA VILLAGE/ROCKLEDGE AREA. DAMAGE TO APARTMENT COMPLEX IN AREA. EXTENT OF DAMAGE UNKNOWN AT THIS TIME. REPORTED BETWEEN 943PM AND 947 PM.
01:50 UTCTORNADOCocoaBrevard, FLROOF DAMAGE ON FLORIDA AVE AND ROSA L JONES STREET. THREE PREVIOUS PUBLIC REPORTS OF TORNADO SIGHTINGS.

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 October 23, 2005

2 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
October 235:35 PM EDTF0Hardee, FL0.550
October 237:37 PM EDTF0Polk, FL1.050$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.