Tornadoes · United States · Florida · 2008
EF0 tornado, Cape Coral, Florida, June 13, 2008
This EF0 tornado ran 0.3 miles across Lee County on June 13, 2008, touching down at 4:45 PM EDT and reaching 70 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $110,000 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 13, 2008
- Touchdown
- 4:45 PM EDT (20:45 UTC)
- Lifted
- 4:48 PM EDT (20:48 UTC)
- On the ground
- 3 minutes
- Path length
- 0.3 miles (0.5 km)
- Path width
- 70 yards (64 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $110,000
- County
- Lee County
- Touchdown point
- 26.580, -81.983
- Lift-off point
- 26.584, -81.983
- Record number
- 0806131445-01
What the Weather Service recorded
High pressure ridging across the area kept easterly winds in place across the area. A sea breeze developed near the coast in the afternoon with showers and thunderstorms developing along the line. One storm moving along the sea breeze boundary interacted with the predominant easterly flow in place to produce a brief weak tornado in Cape Coral.
Damage was sustained by 18 homes near Pelican Boulevard. Fourteen homes incurred minor damage to pool cages and roof shingles. Four homes had moderate damage to roofs and soffits. The brief tornado occurred on the leading edge of a thunderstorm gust front. Wind speeds were estimated around 80mph.
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 20:07 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
8.8 hours before the tornado, 132 km from the path. June 13, 2008.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 158 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -110 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 121 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 862 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 7 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 10 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- -24 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 24 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.8 K/km
Tampa Bay, FL (KTBW), 00:00Z
3.2 hours after it, 132 km from the path. June 14, 2008.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 492 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -52 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 454 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 975 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 18 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 17 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- -41 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- -37 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.2 K/km
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20:45 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Nne Cape Coral | Lee, FL | 12 HOMES WITH SOME ROOF DAMAGE NEAR SW 38TH TERRACE AND PELICAN BOULEVARD. MAINLY DAMAGE TO SHINGLES AND SOFFITS WITH A COUPLE OF HOMES SUSTAINING DAMAGE TO PLYWOOD ROOFING. |
| 20:45 UTC | TORNADO 0 | Nne Cape Coral | Lee, FL | 18 HOMES WITH SOME ROOF DAMAGE NEAR SW 38TH TERRACE AND PELICAN BOULEVARD. MAINLY DAMAGE TO SHINGLES AND SOFFITS WITH A COUPLE OF HOMES SUSTAINING DAMAGE TO PLYWOOD ROOFING. |
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 June 13, 2008
3 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.