Tornadoes · United States · Florida · 2007
EF0 tornado, Cape Coral, Florida, July 21, 2007
This EF0 tornado ran 0.2 miles across Lee County on July 21, 2007, touching down at 11:45 AM EDT and reaching 30 yards wide. It killed nobody.
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
- July 21, 2007
- Touchdown
- 11:45 AM EDT (15:45 UTC)
- Lifted
- 11:46 AM EDT (15:46 UTC)
- On the ground
- 1 minutes
- Path length
- 0.2 miles (0.3 km)
- Path width
- 30 yards (27 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Lee County
- Touchdown point
- 26.580, -81.947
- Lift-off point
- 26.580, -81.947
- Record number
- 0707210945-01
What the Weather Service recorded
A late season cold front moved into northern Florida during the day. Minor impulses on westerly flow aloft combined with the west coast sea breeze front to produce severe thunderstorm south of Interstate 4.
A funnel cloud was reported near Cape Coral at 10:32 AM EST and it briefly touched down as a tornado at 10:45 AM EST near Cypress Lake Drive. No damage was reported.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
10 minutes of warning. NWS TBW issued a tornado warning for this county at 15:35 UTC, 10 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 16:00 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 15:35 UTC | 16:00 UTC | Tornado Warning | TBW |
| 16:13 UTC | 16:48 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm 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. The outlook in force was issued at 12:51 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
3.8 hours before the tornado, 133 km from the path. July 21, 2007.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 3958 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -3 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 2601 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 678 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 15 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 5 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 17 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 23 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.0 K/km
Tampa Bay, FL (KTBW), 00:00Z
8.2 hours after it, 133 km from the path. July 22, 2007.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 497 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -105 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 1953 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1104 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 14 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 4 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 4 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 38 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.5 K/km
The radar
The Tampa radar (KTBW), 133 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 15:45 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15:32 UTC | FUNNEL CLOUD | 2 Se Cape Coral | Lee, FL | FUNNEL CLOUD ALOFT NEAR CYPRESS LAKE DRIVE. |
| 15:45 UTC | TORNADO | 2 Se Cape Coral | Lee, FL | FUNNEL CLOUD MADE BRIEF TOUCHDOWN NEAR CYPRESS LAKE DRIVE. |
| 16:23 UTC | HAIL 0.75 | 10 Ene Fort Myers Shore | Charlotte, FL |
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 July 21, 2007
2 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
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.