Tornadoes · United States · Florida · 2007
EF0 tornado, Marathon, Florida, June 24, 2007
This EF0 tornado ran 0.6 miles across Monroe County on June 24, 2007, touching down at 1:58 PM EDT and reaching 30 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $3,000 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
- June 24, 2007
- Touchdown
- 1:58 PM EDT (17:58 UTC)
- Lifted
- 2:00 PM EDT (18:00 UTC)
- On the ground
- 2 minutes
- Path length
- 0.6 miles (0.9 km)
- Path width
- 30 yards (27 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $3,000
- County
- Monroe County
- Touchdown point
- 24.703, -81.087
- Lift-off point
- 24.700, -81.096
- Record number
- 0706241158-01
What the Weather Service recorded
A nonsupercell waterspout tracked from one mile north of the Marathon Airport toward the west-southwest, making landfall as a tornado shortly before 1300 EST on Palm Island, a private resort community. The tornado moved back over the water as a waterspout and made a second, final landfall onto private property near the west end of Vaca Key.
A large nonsupercell waterspout made landfall as a tornado on Palm Island, a private resort community. Trees were damaged, along with air conditioning units torn off a commercial structure, and outdoor furniture tossed throughout the resort and into the water. The tornado crossed back into the water, and made a second landfall just west of the Seven Mile Grille Restaurant on the Florida Bay side of Vaca Key. There, only medium sized tree limbs were damaged. Peak damage rating was confirmed as EF0. The tornado dissipated as a weakening swirl across US Highway 1.
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 forecast that day
The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 16:13 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.
Key West, FL (KEYW), 12:00Z
6.0 hours before the tornado, 65 km from the path. June 24, 2007.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 2784 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -10 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 4487 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 912 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 12 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 4 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 12 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 61 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 6.3 K/km
Key West, FL (KEYW), 00:00Z
6.0 hours after it, 65 km from the path. June 25, 2007.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 2620 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -16 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 3957 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1021 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 8 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 3 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- -12 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 26 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 6.6 K/km
The radar
The Key West radar (KBYX), 63 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 17:59 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17:20 UTC | WATER SPOUT | N Marathon | Middle Keys In Mon, FL | 3 WATERSPOUTS WERE REPORTED BY NUMEROUS SPOTTERS AND CITY OFFICIALS BETWEEN 120PM AND 200PM. THE WATERSPOUT WAS VERY LARGE AND LONG-LIVED...ABOUT 40 MINUTES OR SO...AND MOVED SLOWLY WEST FROM THE WEST END OF THE MARATHON |
| 18:00 UTC | HAIL 0.25 | Marathon | Middle Keys In Mon, FL | A TRAINED SPOTTER REPORTED A FEW PIECES OF SMALLER THAN PEA SIZED HAIL AT MARATHON AIRPORT. |
| 18:05 UTC | TSTM WND GST 40 | Marathon | Middle Keys In Mon, FL | MARATHON ASOS REPORTED A PEAK WIND FROM THE SOUTH AT 35 KNOTS...OR 40 MPH...AT 205 PM. |
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 June 24, 2007
4 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.