Tornadoes · United States · Florida · 2013

EF0 tornado, Pensacola Beach, Florida, July 22, 2013

This EF0 tornado ran 0.0 miles across Escambia County on July 22, 2013, touching down at 6:30 PM CDT and reaching 30 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $5,000 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 22, 2013
Touchdown
6:30 PM CDT (23:30 UTC)
Lifted
6:31 PM CDT (23:31 UTC)
On the ground
1 minutes
Path length
0.0 miles (0.0 km)
Path width
30 yards (27 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$5,000
County
Escambia County
Touchdown point
30.387, -86.991
Lift-off point
30.387, -86.991
Record number
1307221730-01

What the Weather Service recorded

Severe thunderstorms with isolated occurrences of strong downburst winds and localized flooding developed during the mid to late afternoon hours on July 22.

Waterspout came ashore as a tornado near Oak Drive and quickly dissipated. A few trees were blown over onto road by tornado and a few power lines were left sagging.

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
17:14 UTC18:45 UTCMarine WarningMOB
21:59 UTC23:22 UTCMarine WarningMOB
22:23 UTC22:41 UTCMarine WarningMOB
22:36 UTC23:26 UTCMarine WarningMOB
23:30 UTC00:00 UTCMarine WarningMOB

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 19:49 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 radar

The Eglin Afb radar (KEVX), 104 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:32 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.

What was reported nearby

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

Time (UTC)ReportWhereCountyRemark
22:44 UTCTSTM WND DMGPensacolaEscambia, FLTREES AND POWERLINES DOWN ON LLOYD ST AND SCENIC HWY.
23:45 UTCFLASH FLOODNavarreSanta Rosa, FLVEHICLES STALLED ON HWY 98 DUE TO WATER OVER ROADWAY. WATER OVER THE ROAD AT MERCADO AND AVENIDA DEL SOL IN NAVARRE.
01:21 UTCFLASH FLOODNavarreSanta Rosa, FLWATER KNEE DEEP IN A HOUSE ON AURORA DR IN HOLLEY BY THE SEA.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

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 22, 2013

5 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
July 221:33 AM CDTEF1Clearwater, MN7.5150$150,000
July 221:50 AM CDTEF2Mahnomen, MN21.1400$1.8 million
July 224:45 PM CDTEF0Eau Claire, WI0.310$5,000
July 225:15 PM CDTEF0Trempealeau, WI1.140$22,000
July 2212:12 AM EDTEF0Harford, MD0.8100$3,000

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.