Tornadoes · United States · Florida · 2008
EF0 tornado, Mandarin, Florida, December 11, 2008
This EF0 tornado ran 0.4 miles across Duval County on December 11, 2008, touching down at 10:15 AM EST and reaching 50 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
- December 11, 2008
- Touchdown
- 10:15 AM EST (15:15 UTC)
- Lifted
- 10:16 AM EST (15:16 UTC)
- On the ground
- 1 minutes
- Path length
- 0.4 miles (0.6 km)
- Path width
- 50 yards (46 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Duval County
- Touchdown point
- 30.183, -81.667
- Lift-off point
- 30.184, -81.667
- Record number
- 0812110915-01
What the Weather Service recorded
A squall line moved east across north Florida over night on Wednesday 12/10 and during the day on Thursday 12/11.
Two small waterspouts were observed on the St Johns River by a motorist near the Buckman Bridge and lasted for half a minute or less.
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.
The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 10:48 UTC and running to 17:00 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10:14 UTC | 08:00 UTC | Lake Wind Advisory | JAX |
| 10:48 UTC | 17:00 UTC | Tornado Watch | JAX |
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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 12:35 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.
Jacksonville, FL (KJAX), 12:00Z
3.3 hours before the tornado, 35 km from the path. December 11, 2008.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 286 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -9 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 396 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 567 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 41 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 36 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 205 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 241 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.3
- Supercell composite
- 1.8
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.1 K/km
Jacksonville, FL (KJAX), 00:00Z
8.7 hours after it, 35 km from the path. December 12, 2008.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 45 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -9 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 109 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 985 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 86 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 44 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 192 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 177 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.2
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.3 K/km
The surface observations
Jacksonville Nas (NIP), 6 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (kt) | Pressure (mb) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13:53 UTC | 71 | 66 | 160° 10 kt | 1007.5 | ||
| 14:53 UTC | 73 | 67 | 180° 9 kt | 17 | 1007.5 | |
| 15:53 UTC | 61 | 58 | 270° 13 kt | 22 | 1009.8 | RA BR |
| 16:53 UTC | 60 | 59 | 260° 7 kt | 1009.5 | RA BR |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
The radar
The Jacksonville radar (KJAX), 34 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 15:13 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14:15 UTC | DOWNBURST | 3 Ene Sanderson | Baker, FL | NWS SURVEY REPORTED MINOR DAMAGE TO HOMES IN A QUARTER TO HALF MILE RADIUS NEAR US HIGHWAY 90 AND STATE ROAD 135. WIND GUSTS WERE ESTIMATED TO BE NEAR HURRICANE FORCE. TIME ESTIMATED BY DOPPLER RADAR. |
| 14:55 UTC | TSTM WND GST 41 | 9 Nw Lakeside | Duval, FL | THE CECIL FIELD AWOS MEASURED A WIND OF 41 MPH. |
| 15:15 UTC | WATER SPOUT | 3 Nnw Mandarin | Duval, FL | TWO SMALL WATERSPOUTS WERE OBSERVED ON THE ST JOHNS RIVER BY A MOTORIST NEAR THE BUCKMAN BRIDGE AND LASTED FOR HALF A MINUTE OR LESS. TIME IS ESTIMATED BASED ON RADAR IMAGERY. |
| 15:21 UTC | TSTM WND GST 50 | Jacksonville Intl Arpt | Duval, FL | THE JACKSONVILLE AIRPORT ASOS MEASURED A PEAK WIND GUST OF 50 MPH FROM THE NORTHWEST. |
| 15:25 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 4 Ene Lakeside | Clay, FL | WIND BLEW TREE DOWN ON A FENCE AND CAUSED MINOR DAMAGE TO ROOF SHINGLES ON WYNDEGATE DRIVE. |
| 15:30 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Tallyrand | Duval, FL | DAMAGE OCCURRED TO SHIP CONTAINERS AT TALLEYRAND AVENUE. |
| 15:40 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Bayard | Duval, FL | A TREE DOWN AND ROOF SHINGLES TORN OFF AT A RESIDENCE NEAR HATTON CHASE LANE IN BAYARD. TIME IS ESTIMATED BASED RADAR. |
| 15:43 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 4 Ene Sanderson | Baker, FL | ROOF COMPLETELY BLOWN OFF A HOME AND PART OF ANOTHER ROOF BLOWN OFF A HOME OFF OF RUISE DRIVE. POSSIBLE TORNADO DAMAGE. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2008 tornado in FloridaEvery tornado in Florida since 1950Warnings in force in Florida nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of December 11, 2008
3 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| December 11 | 9:55 AM EST | EF0 | Pierce, GA | 0.7 | 50 | |||
| December 11 | 1:26 PM EST | EF0 | Newberry, SC | 3.5 | 40 | $4,000 | ||
| December 11 | 3:50 PM EST | EF1 | Cabarrus, NC | 2.4 | 30 |
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.