EF1 tornado, Ellaville, Florida, March 31, 2009

1. EF065 to 85 mph

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

2. EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado

   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

EF1

Date

March 31, 2009

Touchdown

8:45 PM EDT (00:45 UTC)

Lifted

9:00 PM EDT (01:00 UTC)

On the ground

15 minutes

Path length

2.2 miles (3.5 km)

Path width

200 yards (183 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$750,000

County

Suwannee County

Touchdown point

30.377, -83.180

Lift-off point

30.392, -83.148

Record number

0903311845-01

A series of upper level impulses moved over a stationary frontal boundary across north Florida and southeast Georgia producing severe weather and flooding. This event continued into April 2009.

The tornado touched down as an EF-0 in an open field just east of the Suwannee River and south of the Progress Energy power plant. It increased to intensity becoming a low end EF-1 tornado several hundred feet down track where it impacted several farm buildings and mobile homes. Several small farm structures were destroyed and winds here we estimated to be between 86 and 90 mph. The tornado continued moving northeastward as an EF-0 snapping trees along its path near the entrance to the Suwannee River State Park and along Stagecoach Road. It then went through a wooded area emerging along West Tower Road where it began the occlusion process. The rear flank downdraft heavily damaged two chicken houses with a loss of about a quarter million dollars. At this point the tornado took a northward turn toward the Jenkins Farm house destroying a large work shed with heavy machinery and damaging the home. The tornado was rated as an EF-1 here with winds of 95 to 100 mph. Debris from the shed was strewn across the field north of the Jenkins Farm house to Stagecoach Road.

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

7 minutes of warning. NWS JAX issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:38 UTC, 7 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:30 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 21:25 UTC and running to 04:00 UTC.

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 Slight Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 20:02 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.

Valdosta Regional (VLD), 46 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

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

5 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.