EF0 tornado, Ormond Beach to Blake, Florida, July 24, 2009

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.

Rating

EF0

Date

July 24, 2009

Touchdown

5:46 PM EDT (21:46 UTC)

Lifted

5:49 PM EDT (21:49 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

0.6 miles (1.0 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$1,000

County

Volusia County

Touchdown point

29.288, -81.038

Lift-off point

29.280, -81.033

Record number

0907241546-01

Sea breeze boundaries collided over coastal Volusia County, resulting in the rapid development of a severe storm near Ormond Beach. This cell then back-built south-southwest along a boundary during the late afternoon, producing a complex of strong to severe cells farther inland. A waterspout developed within the initial severe cell offshore of Ormond Beach and moved onto the beach as a tornado, reaching the adjacent backyard of several homes just beyond the beach. This vortex, or more likely other vorticies associated with the same cell then meandered south along the beach and near-shore Atlantic waters for about ten minutes (about 3 minutes over or near the beach). Early in the evening, another tornado (rated EF0) developed inland over Port Orange and damaged over 150 manufactured/mobile homes before lifting. One person sustained minor injuries from broken glass. Also, between Ormond Beach and Port Orange, a man was struck and injured by lightning.

Volusia County Beach Patrol witnessed a waterspout moving onshore the beach, then meandering southward along the beach, into backyards of some residences adjacent to beach and back into the near-shore Atlantic waters. The beach patrol indicated that multiple vortices formed, dissipated and re-formed along the indicated north-south track. The tornado tossed some light chairs and tables in a backyard just inland from the beach and also moved a small catamaran from the upper part of the beach to the surf-line and snapped the mast. Circular marks were evident in the beach sand where the tornado crossed from the backyards to the ocean, near the location of the deposited catamaran. The tornado was rated at the minimum end of the EF-0 range (65 mph).

A NWS ground survey of damage revealed a weak EF0 tornado touched down in the extreme northeast portion of the Lighthouse Point mobile home community. The tornado continued south-southwest and strengthened to a strong EF0 tornado within the Laurelwood manufactured home community, then lifted in the extreme northwest portion of the Brandy Hills subdivision. Light debris (insulation, styrofoam) was deposited up to 2 miles downstream (south-southeast) from where the tornado lifted. 154 homes sustained damage: 3 uninhabitable, 60 major damage, 43 minor damage, 48 very minimal damage. One man sustained a minor injury, due to cuts from broken glass. EF assessment: DI3, DOD4, LB-EXP.

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

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

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 Storm Prediction Center had this point in a General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 20:56 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 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.

The Melbourne radar (KMLB), 135 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:46 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.

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

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

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

4 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

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.

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.