Tornadoes · United States · Florida · 2007
EF1 tornado, (Evb)New Smyrna Beach Airport to Isleboro, Florida, February 2, 2007
From (Evb)New Smyrna Beach Airport to Isleboro, this EF1 tornado ran 3.1 miles across Volusia County on February 2, 2007, touching down at 4:22 AM EST and reaching 100 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $6.0 million 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 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado
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
- EF1
- Date
- February 2, 2007
- Touchdown
- 4:22 AM EST (09:22 UTC)
- Lifted
- 4:27 AM EST (09:27 UTC)
- On the ground
- 5 minutes
- Path length
- 3.1 miles (5.0 km)
- Path width
- 100 yards (91 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $6.0 million
- County
- Volusia County
- Touchdown point
- 29.064, -80.989
- Lift-off point
- 29.073, -80.942
- Record number
- 0702020322-01
What the Weather Service recorded
A series of powerful tornadoes swept across Sumter, Lake and Volusia counties during the early morning hours of February 2, 2007. A discontinuous swath of tornado damage was observed from near Wildwood in Sumter County to the town of Lady Lake (Lake County) to New Smyrna Beach (Volusia County). This was a distance of over 70 miles. A total of 21 fatalities occurred within Lake County. Central Florida was located in the warm sector ahead of an advancing cold front. Large scale lift was supported by a very strong jet aloft, with strong vertical shear. Instability increased overnight with temperatures and dew points increasing through the pre-dawn hours. A single long-tracked supercell thunderstorm traveled from Sumter County to the coastal waters of Volusia County during the early morning hours of February 2, 2007. Three tornadoes touched down along this track.
The same mesocyclone that produced the previous tornadoes in Lake and Volusia County now moved over New Smyrna Beach. The F1 tornado first touched down east of Interstate 95 along Turnbull Bay Road and moved rapidly east where it lifted at the Intracoastal Waterway just north of New Smyrna Beach Airport. The tornado damaged roofs, car ports, garage doors and pool screens in the area. There were no injuries reported.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
12 minutes of warning. NWS MLB issued a tornado warning for this county at 09:10 UTC, 12 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 09:37 UTC.
The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 07:05 UTC and running to 13:00 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 23:40 UTC | 00:14 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | MLB |
| 05:36 UTC | 06:15 UTC | Tornado Warning | MLB |
| 06:12 UTC | 07:00 UTC | Tornado Warning | MLB |
| 07:05 UTC | 13:00 UTC | Tornado Watch | MLB |
| 08:49 UTC | 09:15 UTC | Tornado Warning | MLB |
| 09:10 UTC | 09:37 UTC | Tornado Warning | MLB |
| 10:18 UTC | 11:00 UTC | Tornado Warning | MLB |
| 11:07 UTC | 11:36 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 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 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.
Cape Canaveral, FL (KXMR), 00:00Z
9.4 hours before the tornado, 81 km from the path. February 2, 2007.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 275 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -27 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 155 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 803 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 72 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 34 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 373 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 586 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 1.0
- Supercell composite
- 9.7
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.7 K/km
Cape Canaveral, FL (KXMR), 12:00Z
2.6 hours after it, 81 km from the path. February 2, 2007.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 723 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -7 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 274 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 560 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 67 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 44 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 451 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 491 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 2.4
- Supercell composite
- 8.5
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.5 K/km
The radar
The Melbourne radar (KMLB), 110 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 09:23 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 08:45 UTC | TORNADO | Paisley | Lake, FL | *** 11 FATAL *** |
| 08:48 UTC | TORNADO | 1 Ssw Forest Hills | Lake, FL | *** 11 FATAL *** LAKE MACK. SURVEY CREW FOUND HIGH END EF3 TORNADO DAMAGE AT THIS SITE WITH WINDS ESTIMATED AT 160 TO 165 MPH. |
| 08:50 UTC | TORNADO | 9 E Paisley | Lake, FL | *** 3 FATAL *** AT FOREST DRIVE AND STATE ROAD 44 IN LAKE COUNTY. SURVEY REPORTS HIGH END EF3 DAMAGE WITH WINDS 150 TO 154 MPH. |
| 08:55 UTC | TORNADO | 2 E Hontoon Island Stat | Volusia, FL | VOLUSIA COUNTY/LAKE COUNTY LINE. HONTOON ISLAND. HIGH END EF3 DAMAGE WITH ESTIMATED MAXIMUM WIND SPEEDS OF 150 TO 154 MPH. |
| 09:00 UTC | HEAVY RAIN 5.14 | Flagler Beach | Flagler, FL | 24 HOUR RAINFALL TOTAL AT CENTRAL FLAGLER BEACH. |
| 09:00 UTC | HEAVY RAIN 5.75 | S Flagler Beach | Flagler, FL | 24 HOUR RAINFALL TOTAL. |
| 09:00 UTC | HEAVY RAIN 6 | Bunnell | Flagler, FL | 24 HOUR RAINFALL TOTAL. RAIN GUAGE OVERFLOWED. |
| 09:00 UTC | HEAVY RAIN 6.7 | Bunnell | Flagler, FL | 24 HOUR RAINFALL TOTAL |
| 09:00 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 3 Ne De Land | Volusia, FL | POSSIBLE TORNADO. PRELIMINARY REPORT. INTERSTATE 4 AT STATE ROAD 44 CLOSED BOTH LANES DUE TO MULTIPLE VEHICLE ACCIDENT INCLUDING LARGE TRACTOR TRAILER TRUCKS OVER TURNED. |
| 09:00 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | New Smyrna Beach | Volusia, FL | REPORTS TREES AND POWER LINES DOWN AT NSB AIRPORT. |
| 09:02 UTC | TORNADO | De Land | Volusia, FL | HIGH END ENHANCED-F2 TORNADO ...EF2... REPORTED BY NWS MELBOURNE SURVEY CREW. ESTIMATED WINDS OF 130 TO 135 MPH. |
| 10:30 UTC | TORNADO | De Land | Volusia, FL | *** 3 INJ *** POSSIBLE TORNADO. LAKE BEARSFORD AREA. SEVERAL MINOR INJURIES AS OF THIS TIME. |
| 10:35 UTC | TORNADO | De Land | Volusia, FL | POSSIBLE TORNADO. APPLEWOOD APARTMENTS. COMPLEX EXTENDS FROM SOUTH END OF AMELIA AVE TO US 92. MAJOR DAMAGE. |
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 | 8:00 AM EST | EF0 | Polk, FL | 0.5 | 50 | $2,000 |
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.