EF1 tornado, Espanola to Hammock, Florida, December 14, 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

December 14, 2013

Touchdown

7:00 PM EST (00:00 UTC)

Lifted

7:10 PM EST (00:10 UTC)

On the ground

10 minutes

Path length

9.5 miles (15.3 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$5.0 million

County

Flagler County

Touchdown point

29.520, -81.310

Lift-off point

29.610, -81.190

Record number

1312141800-01

A pre-frontal cluster of showers with isolated thunderstorms tracked northeast across north Florida during the afternoon and evening. ||A progressive upper level trough over the central U.S. moved east as the lead short wave trough lifted northeast across the Ohio Valley during the day. Well ahead of a cold front, Northeast Florida and Southeast Ga were located in the warm sector of this system with a strongly sheared atmosphere. The 12z and 00z JAX Upper Air Sounding showed 0-3KM helicity values between 300-400 m2/s2. Surface based instability was weak but enough for thunderstorm activity over mainly northeast Florida. Two thunderstorms merged together as thunderstorms tracked from the nature coast across the Florida peninsula over Flagler County. The role of the storms interaction and merger most likely assisted in the subsequent storm enhancement and tornado genesis across Palm Coast, Florida. The storm strengthened with 40 knots of rotational velocity around 5.7 kft over Palm Coast in Flagler county, and a tornado warning was issued at 6:54 pm EST. The first confirmed tornado touchdown damage was recieved at 7 pm that nigth in Palm Coast. There were no injuries nor fatalities reported.

During the evening hours, between 655 pm and 710 pm EST on December 14, 2013, a tornado with maximum strength of EF1 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale touched down and crossed the northern sections of Palm Coast in Flagler County Florida. The tornado initially touched down north of Espanola on an intermittend track. The tornado then intensified to its maximum strength of 95 to 110 across the B section (Indian Trails and Pine Lakes neighborhoods) and western F sections of Palm Coast on a continuous path ranging in width from approximately 75 yards to a maximum of around 150 yards on Bannbury Lane. The tornado weakened as it moved northeast toward the coast with a path width of 25 to 50 yards across the eastern F section and Hammock area. ||The location of the initial touchdown was near 29.52 degrees north latitude and 81.31 degrees west longitude. The location of the final damage was near 29.61 degrees north latitude and 81.19 degrees west longitude. The total distance between the initial touchdown and final damage was approximately 9.5 miles with the longest continuous path approximately 1 mile in the B section of Palm Coast. ||Media reported 7 homes were destroyed and more than 150 damaged when the tornado struck Palm Coast. Palm Coast city officials stated that 142 homes were partially damaged in the Indian Trails neighborhood and 22 homes had moderate damage. The damage was estimated at more than $5 million. No injuries were reported. The area was cluttered with downed trees and house debris. The tornado downed power lines, blew out windows, knocked down trees and power poles and ripped away roof shingles.

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

6 minutes of warning. NWS JAX issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:54 UTC, 6 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:18 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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 20:01 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.

The Jacksonville radar (KJAX), 111 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:02 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

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.