Tornadoes · United States · Florida · 2007
EF0 tornado, Frostproof, Florida, February 2, 2007
This EF0 tornado ran 0.5 miles across Polk County on February 2, 2007, touching down at 8:00 AM EST and reaching 50 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $2,000 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
- February 2, 2007
- Touchdown
- 8:00 AM EST (13:00 UTC)
- Lifted
- 8:04 AM EST (13:04 UTC)
- On the ground
- 4 minutes
- Path length
- 0.5 miles (0.8 km)
- Path width
- 50 yards (46 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $2,000
- Crop damage
- $2,000
- County
- Polk County
- Touchdown point
- 27.730, -81.530
- Lift-off point
- 27.730, -81.530
- Record number
- 0702020700-01
What the Weather Service recorded
A developing area of low pressure over the western Gulf of Mexico on Thursday, February 1 intensified and moved off the mid Atlantic coast Friday. Numerous thunderstorms developed out ahead of and along the associated cold front that pushed into southern Florida late Friday. The first tornado of the year to use the Enhanced Fujita Scale occurred just after 3 AM Friday in The Villages in northeast Sumter County. Several violent tornadoes were reported across central Florida early Friday morning. This violent tornado outbreak was the largest in Florida since the Kissimmee tornadoes of February 22-23, 1998. |In addition to the tornadoes, gusty southwest winds ahead of the cold front combined with high tide to cause areas of minor coastal flooding along west and southwest facing shorelines north of Tampa Bay.
A man watched a tornado move through his yard on the edge of town then into an orange grove. The visible funnel did not extend all the way to the ground. The tornado stripped shingles from his roof, blew over two sheds, and damaged large tree limbs. The tornado blew down 4 rows of citrus trees as it moved into the field then lifted back into the sky.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
4 minutes of warning. NWS TBW issued a tornado warning for this county at 12:56 UTC, 4 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 13:15 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 12:56 UTC | 13:15 UTC | Tornado Warning | TBW |
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 12:41 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
1.0 hours before the tornado, 86 km from the path. February 2, 2007.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 997 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -10 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 1375 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 598 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 40 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 43 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 345 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 378 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 1.7
- Supercell composite
- 10.5
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.6 K/km
Tampa Bay, FL (KTBW), 00:00Z
11.0 hours after it, 86 km from the path. February 3, 2007.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -61082 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 879 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 74 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 14 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- -87 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 61 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.4
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 3.9 K/km
The surface observations
Bartow (BOW), 34 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (kt) | Pressure (mb) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12:30 UTC | 71.6 | 71.6 | 240° 12 kt | 20 | 1010.5 | +TSRA |
| 12:50 UTC | 69.8 | 69.8 | 230° 10 kt | 1010.8 | -TSRA | |
| 13:22 UTC | 69.8 | 69.8 | 240° 10 kt | 1011.5 | -RA | |
| 13:50 UTC | 69.8 | 69.8 | 200° 7 kt | 1011.5 | BR | |
| 14:56 UTC | 69.8 | 69.8 | 230° 11 kt | 1012.2 | -RA BR |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
The radar
The Tampa radar (KTBW), 86 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 13:00 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13:00 UTC | TORNADO | Frostproof | Polk, FL | BRIEF TOUCHDOWN NEAR FROSTPROOF. NO DAMAGE REPORTED THUS FAR. RELAYED BY COUNTY AND STATE EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
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
The other tornadoes of February 2, 2007
4 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| February 2 | 3:10 AM EST | EF3 | Sumter, FL | 5.7 | 335 | 15 | $62 million | |
| February 2 | 3:17 AM EST | EF3 | Lake, FL | 10.5 | 450 | 8 | 10 | $52 million |
| February 2 | 3:37 AM EST | EF3 | Lake, FL | 26.0 | 450 | 13 | 51 | $98 million |
| February 2 | 4:22 AM EST | EF1 | Volusia, FL | 3.1 | 100 | $6.0 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.