EF1 tornado, Cosmo to Ft Caroline Shrs, Florida, August 1, 2013

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

August 1, 2013

Touchdown

4:15 PM EDT (20:15 UTC)

Lifted

4:25 PM EDT (20:25 UTC)

On the ground

10 minutes

Path length

1.9 miles (3.1 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$500,000

County

Duval County

Touchdown point

30.351, -81.512

Lift-off point

30.362, -81.482

Record number

1308011415-01

A collision of three boundaries including the east coast sea breeze moving inland, and two outflow boundaries, one from the south and one from the west, converge under and intensifying thunderstorm over the Fort Caroline area. Rapid convergence and uplift spawned a brief tornado which caused structural damage to an apartment complex and widespread tree and some roof damage to homes in the area. One injury occurred. The slow storm motion also produced significant rainfall amounts, with caused flooding from Arlington toward the Mayport.

The sea breezes and several outflow boundaries converged over east Jacksonville Thursday afternoon around 4 pm...then the multicell cluster that developed drifted slowly eastward offshore of the Atlantic coast through 5:30 pm. Strong winds were reported with these storms, with the Naval Air Station in Jacksonville reporting a 41mph wind gust at 3:52pm). WFO Jacksonville conducted a storm survey Thursday evening and confirmed an upper end EF-1 tornado touched down in the Arlington area, ENE of downtown Jacksonville around 4:20 pm EDT along Monument Road and Derringer Road. The tornado briefly reached EF-1 intensity just south of Willowood Drive where it damaged an apartment complex. The Jacksonville Sheriff's office reported 5-6 homes were damaged and 15-20 structures were damaged. There was 1 injury associated with wind damage about 1 mile SW of the Fort Caroline area. The cost of damage was estimated.

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.

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 22:24 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.

Jacksonville/Craig (CRG), 3 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Jacksonville radar (KJAX), 24 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:16 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 2013 tornado in FloridaEvery tornado in Florida since 1950Warnings in force in Florida nowThe forecast where you are

2 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.