Tornadoes · United States · Florida · 2013

EF0 tornado, Safety Harbor, Florida, July 1, 2013

This EF0 tornado ran 0.1 miles across Pinellas County on July 1, 2013, touching down at 5:50 PM EDT and reaching 20 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $10,000 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 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.

The record

Rating
EF0
Date
July 1, 2013
Touchdown
5:50 PM EDT (21:50 UTC)
Lifted
5:52 PM EDT (21:52 UTC)
On the ground
2 minutes
Path length
0.1 miles (0.1 km)
Path width
20 yards (18 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$10,000
County
Pinellas County
Touchdown point
28.021, -82.665
Lift-off point
28.021, -82.665
Record number
1307011550-01

What the Weather Service recorded

Deep moisture and light east flow led to sea breeze storms developing across the area. One of the storms produced a waterspout over the Tampa Bay that briefly came onshore as a tornado.

A nearly stationary waterspout developed over the waters of Safety Harbor and was pushed onshore near the 400 block of East Shore Drive in Oldsmar. Pinellas County Sheriff's Office found damage to shingles of a home, knocked down branches, a tree, a mailbox, and snapped a guide wire.

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

The warnings

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
06:47 UTC08:15 UTCFlood AdvisoryTBW
18:49 UTC00:00 UTCFlood WatchTBW
23:09 UTC01:15 UTCFlood AdvisoryTBW

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 19:34 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.

Tampa Bay, FL (KTBW), 12:00Z

9.8 hours before the tornado, 44 km from the path. July 1, 2013.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Tampa Bay, FL at 12:00Z on 2013-07-01Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 1569 joules per kilogram, CIN -16, lifted condensation level 593 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°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, Tampa Bay, FL at 12:00Z on 2013-07-01The 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 45 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 15 knots.1939Sfc1 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
1569 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-16 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1419 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
593 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
15 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
19 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
45 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
47 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.1 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Tampa Bay, FL (KTBW), 00:00Z

2.2 hours after it, 44 km from the path. July 2, 2013.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Tampa Bay, FL at 00:00Z on 2013-07-02Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 239 joules per kilogram, CIN -1, lifted condensation level 446 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°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, Tampa Bay, FL at 00:00Z on 2013-07-02The 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 69 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 27 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
239 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-1 J/kg
Surface CAPE
761 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
446 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
27 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
20 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
69 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
115 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.1
Supercell composite
0.9
0-3 km lapse rate
5.2 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Tampa radar (KTBW), 44 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:50 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 2013 tornado in FloridaEvery tornado in Florida since 1950Warnings in force in Florida nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of July 1, 2013

6 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
July 19:17 AM EDTEF0Union, NJ4.850$20,000
July 110:58 AM EDTEF0Western Connecticut Planning Region, CT3.7150
July 11:28 PM EDTEF1Capitol Planning Region, CT2.1200$5.0 million
July 11:45 PM EDTEF0Capitol Planning Region, CT0.950$25,000
July 17:33 PM EDTEF0Prince George's, MD2.375$500
July 17:41 PM CDTEF0Wabash, IL0.850

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.