Tornadoes · United States · Florida · 2009

EF0 tornado, Lake Jackson, Florida, December 9, 2009

This EF0 tornado ran 0.6 miles across Leon County on December 9, 2009, touching down at 12:05 PM EST and reaching 50 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $50,000 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.

  1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

    Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

  2. EF186 to 110 mph

    Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

  3. 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.

  4. 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.

  5. EF4166 to 200 mph

    Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

  6. 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.

  7. 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 9, 2009
Touchdown
12:05 PM EST (17:05 UTC)
Lifted
12:06 PM EST (17:06 UTC)
On the ground
1 minutes
Path length
0.6 miles (1.0 km)
Path width
50 yards (46 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$50,000
County
Leon County
Touchdown point
30.540, -84.321
Lift-off point
30.542, -84.310
Record number
0912091105-01

What the Weather Service recorded

A long track supercell thunderstorm produced wind damage west of Quincy and near Lake Jackson, and finally spawned an F0 tornado northwest of Tallahassee near Miller Landing.

A tornado touched down along the northern end of Lake Jackson east of Brill Point Road. It traveled east-northeast and produced damage just south of the 2100 block of Miller Landing Road. One home lost a sizable portion of it shingles on the southward-facing aspect of the home. Debris from the roof was carried northward between 50 and 100 feet. Three large trees were snapped in the backyard of the home and falling in a northward direction. With the damage pattern nearly perpendicular to the storm path, the damage was consistent with an F0 tornado with wind speeds up to 80 mph.

From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.

The warnings

7 minutes of warning. NWS TAE issued a tornado warning for this county at 16:58 UTC, 7 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 17:30 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
16:58 UTC17:30 UTCTornado WarningTAE
17:28 UTC17:52 UTCTornado WarningTAE

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 16:32 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.

Tallahassee Rgnl, FL (KTLH), 12:00Z

5.1 hours before the tornado, 16 km from the path. December 9, 2009.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Tallahassee Rgnl, FL at 12:00Z on 2009-12-09Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 694 joules per kilogram, CIN 0, lifted condensation level 522 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Tallahassee Rgnl, FL at 12:00Z on 2009-12-09The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 219 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 64 knots.1939587897Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
694 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
0 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1362 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
522 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
64 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
36 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
219 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
235 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
1.1
Supercell composite
6.5
0-3 km lapse rate
5.3 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Tallahassee Rgnl, FL (KTLH), 00:00Z

6.9 hours after it, 16 km from the path. December 10, 2009.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Tallahassee Rgnl, FL at 00:00Z on 2009-12-10Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 138 joules per kilogram, CIN -66, lifted condensation level 863 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Tallahassee Rgnl, FL at 00:00Z on 2009-12-10The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 26 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 57 knots.1939587897Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
138 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-66 J/kg
Surface CAPE
782 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
863 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
57 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
31 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
26 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
54 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
1.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.0 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Tallahassee Regional (TLH), 17 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
15:53 UTC7771190° 12 kt191008.1
16:53 UTC7771220° 13 kt191007.8TS
17:53 UTC7574220° 12 kt1007.5-TSRA
18:16 UTC73.473.4260° 18 kt241007.5TSRA BR
18:22 UTC73.473.4270° 15 kt221007.8BR
18:53 UTC7471250° 12 kt201007.5

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The radar

The Tallahassee radar (KTLH), 16 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 17:03 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)ReportWhereCountyRemark
15:45 UTCTSTM WND DMG7 S ChattahoocheeGadsden, FLSEVERAL TREES DOWN ALONG INTERSTATE 10 NEAR MILE MARKER 169.
17:05 UTCTSTM WND DMG7 Nw TallahasseeLeon, FLPOSSIBLE TORNADO. HOMES DAMAGED...TREES DOWN IN VICINITY OF BRILL ROAD AND MILLERS LANDING ROAD ON NORTH SIDE OF LAKE JACKSON.
17:05 UTCTORNADO 08 Nnw TallahasseeLeon, FLBRIEF TORNADO TOUCHED DOWN JUST SOUTHWEST OF MILLER LANDING ROAD ON THE NORTH SIDE OF LAKE JACKSON. THREE LARGE TREES SNAPPED WITH A LARGE NUMBER OF SHINGLES REMOVED FROM A HOME. MAXIMUM WINDS WITH THE TORNADO ARE ESTIMA

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2009 tornado in FloridaEvery tornado in Florida since 1950Warnings in force in Florida nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of December 9, 2009

1 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
December 92:15 PM ESTEF1Wayne, GA1.62501

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.