Tornadoes · United States · Florida · 2007
EF0 tornado, North Naples, Florida, December 21, 2007
This EF0 tornado ran 0.4 miles across Collier County on December 21, 2007, touching down at 8:10 AM EST and reaching 20 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $15,000 of property damage.
The rating scale
Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Enhanced Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.
EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mph
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
EF2111 to 135 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.
EF3136 to 165 mph
Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.
EF4166 to 200 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
EF5over 200 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
- EF0
- Date
- December 21, 2007
- Touchdown
- 8:10 AM EST (13:10 UTC)
- Lifted
- 8:11 AM EST (13:11 UTC)
- On the ground
- 1 minutes
- Path length
- 0.4 miles (0.7 km)
- Path width
- 20 yards (18 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $15,000
- County
- Collier County
- Touchdown point
- 26.239, -81.821
- Lift-off point
- 26.239, -81.814
- Record number
- 0712210710-01
What the Weather Service recorded
A squall line ahead of a cold front over the eastern Gulf of Mexico spawned a waterspout which moved onshore along the northern Collier County coast.
A waterspout moved onshore along Pelican Bay's North Beach, causing damage to several structures at the Sandpiper Restaurant. The awning covering the restaurant's outdoor dining area was partially ripped off and part of its metal frame was damaged. Lounge chairs were thrown through several of the restaurant's windows, with chairs and beach umbrellas observed as far inland as Pelican Bay Boulevard, about a half-mile inland. ||Five vertical propane heaters were destroyed, and a 5-foot by 8-foot section of the roof was damaged.
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 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.
Miami, FL (KMFL), 12:00Z
1.2 hours before the tornado, 160 km from the path. December 21, 2007.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 150 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -112 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 64 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 945 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 59 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 17 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 102 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 140 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.1
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.8 K/km
Miami, FL (KMFL), 00:00Z
10.8 hours after it, 160 km from the path. December 22, 2007.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 55 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -276 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 13 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 999 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 27 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 8 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 19 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 77 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.6 K/km
The surface observations
Naples Municipal (APF), 10 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (kt) | Pressure (mb) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11:53 UTC | 67 | 65 | 0° 0 kt | 1012.9 | ||
| 12:53 UTC | 68 | 66 | 130° 6 kt | 1012.5 | ||
| 13:53 UTC | 73 | 68 | 200° 9 kt | 14 | 1013.5 | |
| 14:53 UTC | 75 | 68 | 190° 11 kt | 1013.9 |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
The radar
The Miami radar (KAMX), 157 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 13:09 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 2007 tornado in FloridaEvery tornado in Florida since 1950Warnings in force in Florida nowThe forecast where you are
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.