Tornadoes · United States · Florida · 2012
EF0 tornado, Lake Apopka to Plymouth, Florida, December 10, 2012
From Lake Apopka to Plymouth, this EF0 tornado ran 4.2 miles across Orange County on December 10, 2012, touching down at 4:26 PM EST and reaching 50 yards wide. It killed nobody.
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.
EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mph
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
EF4166 to 200 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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 10, 2012
- Touchdown
- 4:26 PM EST (21:26 UTC)
- Lifted
- 4:34 PM EST (21:34 UTC)
- On the ground
- 8 minutes
- Path length
- 4.2 miles (6.7 km)
- Path width
- 50 yards (46 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Orange County
- Touchdown point
- 28.625, -81.625
- Lift-off point
- 28.667, -81.575
- Record number
- 1212101526-01
What the Weather Service recorded
Very moist southwest winds developed across east-central Florida well in advance of a cold front and associated upper level disturbance. Strong daytime heating, combined with moderate low-level wind shear, resulted in numerous strong storms, two of which produced tornadoes. The first tornado began as a waterspout over Lake Apoka, then crossed the northeast shore of the lake and remained on the ground for a short distance. Although the waterspout/tornado affected a rural area, several citizens witnessed the event. The second tornado impacted a mobile home park and adjacent wooded area in Edgewater, then became a waterspout as it crossed the intracoastal river, before moving across the barrier island as a tornado. Significant damage occurred at the mobile home park, with only minor damage on the barrier island. Several funnel clouds were also observed.
A citizen videotaped a waterspout over Lake Apopka for several minutes as it moved northeast from near the center of the lake toward the northeast shore. A short time later, several citizens located a few miles northeast of the lake observed the waterspout move onshore and track across the rural Lake Apopka Restoration Area before dissipating.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
13 minutes of warning. NWS MLB issued a tornado warning for this county at 21:13 UTC, 13 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 22:00 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 21:13 UTC | 22:00 UTC | Tornado Warning | MLB |
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 19:45 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.
Cape Canaveral, FL (KXMR), 12:00Z
9.4 hours before the tornado, 109 km from the path. December 10, 2012.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 9 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -174 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 872 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 31 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 16 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 96 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 139 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.2
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 3.5 K/km
The surface observations
Leesburg Municipal Airport (LEE), 28 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (kt) | Pressure (mb) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19:53 UTC | 78 | 70 | 180° 7 kt | 1011.5 | ||
| 20:53 UTC | 78 | 70 | 190° 4 kt | 1010.8 | ||
| 21:53 UTC | 77 | 71 | 190° 4 kt | 1010.8 | ||
| 22:14 UTC | 75.2 | 71.6 | 220° 7 kt | 1011.2 | +RA | |
| 22:25 UTC | 75.2 | 71.6 | 220° 6 kt | 1011.2 | -RA BR | |
| 22:53 UTC | 74 | 73 | 200° 3 kt | 1011.2 |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
What was reported nearby
Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Report | Where | County | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21:26 UTC | WATER SPOUT | 5 E Ferndale | Orange, FL | A CITIZEN VIDEOTAPED A WATESPOUT OVER LAKE APOPKA FOR SEVERAL MINUTES AS IT MOVED NORTHEAST FROM NEAR THE CENTER OF LAKE APOPKA TOWARD THE NORTHEAST SHORE. A SHORT TIME LATER...SEVERAL CITIZENS LOCATED A FEW MILES NORTHE |
| 21:30 UTC | FUNNEL CLOUD | Apopka | Orange, FL | LOCATION OF FUNNEL ESTIMATED BY RADAR. |
| 21:30 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Plymouth | Orange, FL | TOP OF TREE DOWN. TIME ESTIMATED BY RADAR. |
| 21:30 UTC | TORNADO | 4 Wsw Apopka | Orange, FL | PUBLIC REPORTED TORNADO NORTH OF LAKE APOPKA AND PICTURES VIA PUBLIC AND MEDIA APPEAR TO CONFIRM WATERSPOUT OVER LAKE APOPKA. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2012 tornado in FloridaEvery tornado in Florida since 1950Warnings in force in Florida nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of December 10, 2012
6 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| December 10 | 4:43 AM CST | EF1 | Jefferson, AL | 1.1 | 250 | |||
| December 10 | 6:48 AM CST | EF1 | East Baton Rouge Parish, LA | 5.4 | 100 | $200,000 | ||
| December 10 | 7:52 AM CST | EF1 | Walthall, MS | 19.2 | 100 | $140,000 | ||
| December 10 | 8:50 AM CST | EF1 | Ascension Parish, LA | 1.4 | 30 | $200,000 | ||
| December 10 | 5:25 PM EST | EF1 | Volusia, FL | 0.6 | 150 | 2 | $1.7 million | |
| December 10 | 5:29 PM EST | EF0 | Volusia, FL | 0.1 | 20 | $1,000 |
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.