EF3 tornado, Royal to Wildwood, Florida, February 2, 2007

1. EF065 to 85 mph

   Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

2. EF186 to 110 mph

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. 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.

4. EF3136 to 165 mphthis tornado

   Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.

5. EF4166 to 200 mph

   Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

6. 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.

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.

Rating

EF3

Date

February 2, 2007

Touchdown

3:10 AM EST (08:10 UTC)

Lifted

3:16 AM EST (08:16 UTC)

On the ground

6 minutes

Path length

5.7 miles (9.1 km)

Path width

335 yards (306 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

15

Property damage

$62 million

County

Sumter County

Touchdown point

28.881, -82.046

Lift-off point

28.898, -81.954

Record number

0702020210-01

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.

The tornado first touched down near the southeast corner of The Villages south of Lake Miona and moved rapidly to the east northeast at 55 MPH into Lake County. A FEMA report to Sumter County emergency management officials detailed damage to 1,145 homes with 200 destroyed during the 6 minutes the tornado was on the ground. A National Weather Service storm survey estimated maximum winds of 140 MPH. No fatalities were recorded in Sumter County and 15 injuries is a rough estimate.

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

8 minutes of warning. NWS TBW issued a tornado warning for this county at 08:02 UTC, 8 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 08:20 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 05:56 UTC and running to 10:58 UTC.

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 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 06:01 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 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.

The Tampa radar (KTBW), 137 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 08:10 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.

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

The live radar over the trackEvery 2007 tornado in FloridaEvery tornado in Florida since 1950Warnings in force in Florida nowThe forecast where you are

4 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

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.

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.