Tornadoes · United States · Florida · 2006
F0 tornado, Leesburg, Florida, December 25, 2006
This F0 tornado ran 0.3 miles across Lake County on December 25, 2006, touching down at 12:20 PM EST and reaching 50 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $250,000 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.
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
- December 25, 2006
- Touchdown
- 12:20 PM EST (17:20 UTC)
- Path length
- 0.3 miles (0.5 km)
- Path width
- 50 yards (46 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $250,000
- County
- Lake County
- Touchdown point
- 28.800, -81.870
- Lift-off point
- 28.800, -81.870
- Record number
- 1072
What the Weather Service recorded
On December 24th an area of surface low pressure developed in the Gulf of Mexico as a result of a strong upper level trough and an associated powerful branch of the subtropical jet. As this low pressure system moved into Florida, a squall line developed over the eastern Gulf of Mexico and then moved rapidly into Florida . The squall line spawned severe thunderstorms and tornadoes moving east and northeast at around 50 MPH.
An F0 tornado touched down briefly in the Brittany Estates mobile home community just north of Highway 441 in Leesburg. The tornado moved rapidly east and damaged roofs and awnings of 24 residences.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
23 minutes of warning. NWS MLB issued a tornado warning for this county at 16:57 UTC, 23 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 17:45 UTC.
The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 15:10 UTC and running to 22:00 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 15:10 UTC | 22:00 UTC | Tornado Watch | MLB |
| 16:57 UTC | 17:45 UTC | Tornado Warning | MLB |
| 17:39 UTC | 18:30 UTC | Tornado Warning | MLB |
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 16:24 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.
Tampa Bay, FL (KTBW), 12:00Z
5.3 hours before the tornado, 132 km from the path. December 25, 2006.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 872 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -6 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 1633 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 677 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 46 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 38 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 276 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 288 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 1.5
- Supercell composite
- 9.4
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.9 K/km
Tampa Bay, FL (KTBW), 00:00Z
6.7 hours after it, 132 km from the path. December 26, 2006.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 18 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -3 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 151 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 617 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 57 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 22 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- -93 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- -3 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- -0.0
- Supercell composite
- -0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.5 K/km
The surface observations
Leesburg Municipal Airport (LEE), 6 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (kt) | Pressure (mb) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15:53 UTC | 75 | 70 | 190° 12 kt | 18 | 1012.9 | -RA |
| 16:53 UTC | 74 | 70 | 180° 10 kt | 1011.5 | -RA | |
| 17:53 UTC | 70 | 67 | 5 kt | 15 | 1011.5 | TSRA BR |
| 18:53 UTC | 68 | 66 | 3 kt | 1010.5 | -RA BR |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
The radar
The Tampa radar (KTBW), 132 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 17:19 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) | Report | Where | County | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17:00 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Center Hill | Sumter, FL | MINOR TO MODERATE ROOF DAMAGE |
| 17:00 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Webster | Sumter, FL | NUMEROUS LARGE TREES DOWN. CARPORT DESTROYED. ONE MOBILE HOME ROOF DAMAGED. |
| 17:05 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 3 S Webster | Sumter, FL | TREES DOWN IN THE TARRYTOWN AREA NEAR THE INTERSECTION OF STATE ROAD 471 AND STATE ROAD 50. |
| 17:20 UTC | TORNADO | 2 E Leesburg | Lake, FL | NWS STORM SURVEY TEAM CONFIRMS F0 TORNADO TOUCHED DOWN IN BRITTANY ESTATES 2 MILES EAST OF LEESBURG. WINDS WERE ESTIMATED AT 70 MPH. |
| 17:20 UTC | TORNADO | Leesburg | Lake, FL | POSSIBLE TORNADO LEESBURG AREA. MANY REPORTS OF DOWNED POWER LINES FROM LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT. STATE WARNING POINT REPORT OF ROOF AND STRUCTURE DAMAGE TO SEVERAL HOMES IN THE LEESBURG AREA NEAR SR-441 AND MARK DRIVE. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2006 tornado in FloridaEvery tornado in Florida since 1950Warnings in force in Florida nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of December 25, 2006
5 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| December 25 | 6:30 AM EST | F1 | Ben Hill, GA | 11.3 | 100 | $300,000 | ||
| December 25 | 8:06 AM EST | F2 | Columbia, FL | 2.7 | 300 | 1 | ||
| December 25 | 11:20 AM EST | F2 | Pasco, FL | 0.8 | 100 | 2 | $3.5 million | |
| December 25 | 1:22 PM EST | F2 | Volusia, FL | 2.8 | 50 | 5 | $2.5 million | |
| December 25 | 1:40 PM EST | F2 | Volusia, FL | 2.7 | 80 | 6 | $50 million |
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.