Tornadoes · United States · Florida · 2005

F0 tornado, Pace to Avalon Beach, Florida, September 26, 2005

From Pace to Avalon Beach, this F0 tornado ran 0.1 miles across Santa Rosa County on September 26, 2005, touching down at 3:41 PM CDT and reaching 30 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, 2005
Touchdown
3:41 PM CDT (20:41 UTC)
Path length
0.1 miles (0.2 km)
Path width
30 yards (27 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Santa Rosa County
Touchdown point
30.600, -87.150
Lift-off point
30.600, -87.150
Record number
398

What the Weather Service recorded

For the second time in less than three hours a weak tornado briefly touched down near Pace. Spotters were following the storm and saw it touch down. No damage was reported. The storm that produced the tornado had a visible funnel cloud for several minutes.

The same storm that had produced numerous funnel cloud reports continued to move to the south. As it moved south, the funnel cloud reports continued. Law enforcement reported that a weak tornado briefly touched down near Avalon Beach. With the earlier touch downs, no damage was reported.

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

The warnings

14 minutes of warning. NWS MOB issued a tornado warning for this county at 20:27 UTC, 14 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 21:00 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
14:06 UTC14:30 UTCTornado WarningMOB
14:59 UTC18:00 UTCFlash Flood WarningMOB
18:04 UTC18:30 UTCTornado WarningMOB
20:27 UTC21:00 UTCTornado WarningMOB
21:01 UTC21:30 UTCTornado WarningMOB
21:31 UTC22:00 UTCTornado WarningMOB

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, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:35 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 Mobile radar (KMOB), 105 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:42 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 2005 tornado in FloridaEvery tornado in Florida since 1950Warnings in force in Florida nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of September 26, 2005

3 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
September 265:17 AM CDTF0Monroe, AL2.0100$200,000
September 261:30 PM CDTF0Santa Rosa, FL0.130
September 264:05 PM CDTF0Santa Rosa, FL0.130

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.