EF0 tornado, Crestview, Florida, September 4, 2011

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

September 4, 2011

Touchdown

5:15 AM CDT (10:15 UTC)

Lifted

5:17 AM CDT (10:17 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

0.8 miles (1.3 km)

Path width

40 yards (37 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$25,000

County

Okaloosa County

Touchdown point

30.723, -86.558

Lift-off point

30.734, -86.554

Record number

1109040415-01

Tropical Storm Lee began as a tropical wave in the Caribbean Sea during the last week of August. By the evening of Thursday, 1 September 2011, the tropical wave further developed into Tropical Depression 13. By 1 PM the following Friday afternoon, Tropical Depression Lee had formed. Lee slowly moved northward towards the south central Louisiana coastline by Saturday afternoon 3 September, while continuing to produce extremely heavy rainfall over portions of southern Louisiana, southern Mississippi, southern Alabama and the northwest Florida Panhandle. ||The outer rain-bands of Lee produced near-continuous heavy rainfall over portions of southern Alabama, southeastern Mississippi and the northwestern Florida Panhandle by early Saturday morning and that endured through early Sunday before dry air aloft wrapped into Lee���s western side. The center of Lee moved over land around sunrise Sunday, 4 September. However, it would be a while before Lee would weaken to a depression because it remained nearly stationary while the southern half of the circulation was over water where it could continue to derive additional energy from the warm ocean. The next day, Lee was eventually picked up by an upper air trough, turned northeastward and resumed a faster forward speed late in the day on Sunday, 4 September as it began its welcome exit to the northeast late Sunday through late Monday.||Lee���s impacts were far reaching across our region. Although the continuous rains became somewhat intermittent as dry air wrapped into Lee from the west, this created a situation from Sunday afternoon through midday Monday whereby individual thunderstorms became more intense due to increasing levels of atmospheric instability. Stronger thunderstorms and isolated tornadoes affected the North Central Gulf Coast Region, as they formed within the detached outer spiral rain-bands well to the east of Lee���s center on Sunday and finally to the southeast on Monday. The highest total storm tide levels (astronomical plus surge effects) ranged from approximately 3.5 to just barely over 5 feet.||While Lee was in the process of being picked up by a fast moving upper air trough, a series of squall lines that produced moderately widespread thunderstorm wind damage along and ahead of the surface cold front, as well as more isolated tornadoes, affected the area through late Monday afternoon. In all, some 10 to 15 inches of rain fell along coastal sections of Alabama and northwest Florida. Additionally, several weak tornadoes occurred producing modest structural and tree damage. There was also moderate beach erosion and the rip currents endured over a multi-day period. Inland flooding was exacerbated along the immediate coastal zone by higher tide levels due to Lee���s surge effects which created poor to no drainage of area coastal rivers, bays and sounds on during astronomical high tide cycles from 3-5 September (late night hours each day).

Tornado touched down in a subdivision off John King Road just south of Interstate 10. At the start of the tornado path damage was observed to trees and property fences, with the windshield of an automobile knocked out by a tree limb. The tornado moved north of Interstate 10 crossing another subdivision producing damage to several fences and the roofing of a few residences.

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

60 minutes of warning. NWS MOB issued a tornado warning for this county at 09:15 UTC, 60 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 10:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 10:05 UTC and running to 20:57 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 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 05:54 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 Eglin Afb radar (KEVX), 63 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 10:16 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 2011 tornado in FloridaEvery tornado in Florida since 1950Warnings in force in Florida nowThe forecast where you are

13 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.