Tornadoes · United States · Florida · 2014

EF1 tornado, New Smyrna Beach Arp to Edgewater, Florida, July 25, 2014

Name: EF1 tornado, New Smyrna Beach Arp to Edgewater, Florida, July 25, 2014
Start: 2014-07-25T20:24:00.000Z
End: 2014-07-25T20:29:00.000Z
Location: New Smyrna Beach Arp to Edgewater, Florida

From New Smyrna Beach Arp to Edgewater, this EF1 tornado ran 1.7 miles across Volusia County on July 25, 2014, touching down at 4:24 PM EDT and reaching 75 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $723,000 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 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado
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: EF1
Date: July 25, 2014
Touchdown: 4:24 PM EDT (20:24 UTC)
Lifted: 4:29 PM EDT (20:29 UTC)
On the ground: 5 minutes
Path length: 1.7 miles (2.7 km)
Path width: 75 yards (69 m)
Deaths: 0
Injuries: 0
Property damage: $723,000
County: Volusia County
Touchdown point: 28.981, -80.928
Lift-off point: 28.995, -80.905
Record number: 1407251424-01

What the Weather Service recorded

An EF-1 tornado touched down within a rural airpark and affected adjacent neighborhoods. Several buildings and small planes were damaged at the airpark, and many trees were damaged or uprooted within the adjacent neighborhood as the tornado tracked northeast. The thunderstorm which produced the tornado was also responsible for wind damage to a fence and the roof of an apartment building on the barrier island in New Smyrna Beach.

A tornado touched down and reached maximum intensity (estimated 100-105 mph) within the Massey Ranch Airpark in Edgewater where three small aircraft were flipped and damaged and three large hangars sustained major structural damage. Several people were inside the hangars at the time, but were uninjured. The tornado continued northeast and uprooted or damaged many trees, caused minor damage to the roofs of several homes and destroyed sheds within the adjacent Wildwood neighborhood. Roof damage to several of the homes was due to falling trees. Several cars were damaged after being impacted by debris. Farther downstream, sporadic, less significant tree damage occurred. The tornado lifted near the Halifax River, approximately 1.7 miles from where it touched down. Property damage was estimated at $723,000, excluding damage to the aircraft. DI21 DOD3 EXP-UB.

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
20:37 UTC	22:00 UTC	Flood Advisory	MLB

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 19:43 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.

Cape Canaveral, FL (KXMR), 12:00Z

8.4 hours before the tornado, 70 km from the path. July 25, 2014.

Skew-T log-p

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.

Hodograph

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: 2072 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN: -12 J/kg
Surface CAPE: 2537 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL: 745 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear: 5 kt
0-1 km bulk shear: 3 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity: 5 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity: -13 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter: 0.0
Supercell composite: 0.0
0-3 km lapse rate: 5.6 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

New Smyrna Beach Municipal (EVB), 8 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)	Temp (°F)	Dew point (°F)	Wind	Gust (kt)	Pressure (mb)
18:47 UTC	87.8	77	110° 11 kt	16	1017.6
19:47 UTC	87.8	77	110° 15 kt	21	1016.3
21:30 UTC			90° 10 kt		1018.3
21:47 UTC			90° 10 kt		1019

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

The radar

The Melbourne radar (KMLB), 101 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:24 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
19:40 UTC	TSTM WND GST 47	Daytona Beach Airport	Volusia, FL	DAYTONA BEACH ASOS REPORTED WIND GUST OF 41 KT/47 MPH FROM 270 DEGREES.
20:26 UTC	TSTM WND DMG	2 S Edgewater	Volusia, FL	SKYWARN SPOTTER REPORTED THREE FT DIAMETER 50 FOOT TALL PINE TREE DOWN NEAR INTERSECTION OF PINE TREE DRIVE AND 30TH ST. TIME ESTIMATED FROM RADAR.
20:26 UTC	TORNADO	1 Wnw Edgewater	Volusia, FL	EF0 TORNADO TOUCHED DOWN AT MASSEY RANCH AIR PARK. TWO PLANES FLIPPED, EXTENSIVE DAMAGE TO THREE HANGARS WITH SHEET METAL DEBRIS SCATTERED ON ROADWAY. LOTS OF SMALL TREES DOWN. WINDS ESTIMATED 70 TO 80 MPH.
20:30 UTC	TSTM WND DMG	3 Nne Edgewater	Volusia, FL	MINOR ROOF DAMAGE TO APARTMENT BUILDING ON SOUTH ATLANTIC AVE. IN NEW SMYRNA BEACH. TIME ESTIMATED BY RADAR.

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

This ground now

The live radar over the track Every 2014 tornado in Florida Every tornado in Florida since 1950 Warnings in force in Florida now The forecast where you are

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.