Tornadoes · United States · Florida · 2011

EF1 tornado, Hibernia, Florida, October 10, 2011

This EF1 tornado ran 0.7 miles across Clay County on October 10, 2011, touching down at 3:15 AM EDT and reaching 30 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $20,000 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 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.

The record

Rating
EF1
Date
October 10, 2011
Touchdown
3:15 AM EDT (07:15 UTC)
Lifted
3:16 AM EDT (07:16 UTC)
On the ground
1 minutes
Path length
0.7 miles (1.1 km)
Path width
30 yards (27 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$20,000
County
Clay County
Touchdown point
30.086, -81.691
Lift-off point
30.088, -81.703
Record number
1110100115-01

What the Weather Service recorded

Strong surface high pressure positioned across the mid-Atlantic region while low pressure developed near the Bahamas and retrograded across the Florida Straits, then tracked northward up the Florida east coast...and drifted inland across northeast Florida on the 10th. In the upper levels, a low retrograded over the Gulf of Mexico,which focused a plume of higher precipitable water amounts across the forecast area. A very tight surface pressure gradient produced strong wind gusts across the coastal waters and over the coastal counties for several days. Wind gusts of 40 to 55 mph were common in shower activity on the 7th and 8th, then by the 9th and 10th, gusts of 50 to 60 mph were common in just shower squalls. Thunderstorm activity increased across the area from the Atlantic during the night of the 9th and into the 10th as strong low pressure moved west across Florida from near Cape Canaveral. There was one confirmed tornado on Fleming Island in Clay County during the pre-dawn hours of the 10th. Strong onshore flow produced rough surf and large breakers with maximum breaker heights of 10 feet reported on the 9th along the St. Johns county coast.

A tornado moved inland from the St. Johns River near Head Road on Fleming Island. The tornado tracked across Pine Avenue and into the Harvest Bend subdivision where it produced EF1 damage at 5917 Orchard Pond Drive. Homes were damaged with trees blown over or damaged. A roof and wall were pulled back about 1/8 of an inch. Siding and flashing were ripped off of the house and the fence was completely removed with pieces of the siding and fence in the trees. Peak winds were estimated at 80 mph. The cost of damage was estimated.

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

What forecasters said that day

The local office's own words before the tornado touched down, as it sent them, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service text.

NWS Jacksonville, FL wrote its last area forecast discussion before the tornado touched down at Oct 9, 10:20 PM EDT, 4 hours 55 minutes earlier.

Area forecast discussion, Oct 9, 10:20 PM EDT, 4 hours 55 minutes before
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Hazardous weather outlook, Oct 9, 9:27 PM EDT, 5 hours 48 minutes before
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In the hours before

Special weather statement, Oct 10, 12:29 AM EDT, 2 hours 46 minutes before
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Local storm report, Oct 10, 1:09 AM EDT, 2 hours 6 minutes before
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Special weather statement, Oct 10, 1:19 AM EDT, 1 hour 56 minutes before
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Local storm report, Oct 10, 1:51 AM EDT, 1 hour 24 minutes before
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Special weather statement, Oct 10, 1:59 AM EDT, 1 hour 16 minutes before
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Special weather statement, Oct 10, 2:36 AM EDT, 39 minutes before
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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), 00:00Z

7.3 hours before the tornado, 46 km from the path. October 10, 2011.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Jacksonville, FL at 00:00Z on 2011-10-10Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 277 joules per kilogram, CIN 0, lifted condensation level 665 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, Jacksonville, FL at 00:00Z on 2011-10-10The 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 -74 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 24 knots.193958Sfc1 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
277 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
0 J/kg
Surface CAPE
236 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
665 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
24 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
24 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-74 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
-46 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
6.2 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Jacksonville, FL (KJAX), 12:00Z

4.7 hours after it, 46 km from the path. October 10, 2011.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Jacksonville, FL at 12:00Z on 2011-10-10Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 1148 joules per kilogram, CIN -4, lifted condensation level 500 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, Jacksonville, FL at 12:00Z on 2011-10-10The 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 91 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 16 knots.193958Sfc1 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
1148 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-4 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1532 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
500 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
16 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
17 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
91 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
121 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
4.9 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Jacksonville Nas (NIP), 17 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
00:00 UTC

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

The radar

The Jacksonville radar (KJAX), 44 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 07:13 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.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2011 tornado in FloridaEvery tornado in Florida since 1950Warnings in force in Florida nowThe forecast where you are

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.