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.
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
- 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) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 17:14 UTC | 18:45 UTC | Marine Warning | MOB |
| 21:59 UTC | 23:22 UTC | Marine Warning | MOB |
| 22:23 UTC | 22:41 UTC | Marine Warning | MOB |
| 22:36 UTC | 23:26 UTC | Marine Warning | MOB |
| 23:30 UTC | 00:00 UTC | Marine Warning | MOB |
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) | Report | Where | County | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22:44 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Pensacola | Escambia, FL | TREES AND POWERLINES DOWN ON LLOYD ST AND SCENIC HWY. |
| 23:45 UTC | FLASH FLOOD | Navarre | Santa Rosa, FL | VEHICLES STALLED ON HWY 98 DUE TO WATER OVER ROADWAY. WATER OVER THE ROAD AT MERCADO AND AVENIDA DEL SOL IN NAVARRE. |
| 01:21 UTC | FLASH FLOOD | Navarre | Santa Rosa, FL | WATER 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.
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.