EF1 tornado, Bowden to Skinners, Florida, April 25, 2015

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

April 25, 2015

Touchdown

5:52 PM EDT (21:52 UTC)

Lifted

5:58 PM EDT (21:58 UTC)

On the ground

6 minutes

Path length

3.4 miles (5.5 km)

Path width

350 yards (320 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Duval County

Touchdown point

30.291, -81.656

Lift-off point

30.269, -81.606

Record number

1504251552-01

53 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS JAX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 104 mph.

• large Cypress snapped along St Johns River. northern bound of damage.
• damage in area clearly shows a circulation and trees are snapped nearby.
• snapped 60 up trunk top landed on roof.
• A uprooted tree took down part of the house looks like a storage shed.

Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.

Scattered pre-frontal severe thunderstorms impacted NE Florida during the afternoon and evening hours. Hail, wind damage and a lone tornado in Duval county occurred.

The tornado moved ashore and pushed just south of Hendricks Elementary snapping trees and power lines. Several structures were impacted by falling trees and limbs. Initial damage was tightly clustered with a path of approximately 200 yards. As the tornado crossed Phillips Highway several businesses sustained roof damage. Trailers in the Pine Oaks mobile home park were damaged as well. The tornado began to track more southeast as it passed I-95 and widened to 350 yards as it neared Englewood High School. At about 5:58 pm, the tornado began to weaken and dissipate. A wide swath of straight line winds continued to cause damage farther to the south and east of the path until shortly after 6 pm. The path width varied from 200-350 yards along a 3.45 mile path. The tornado lasted 5-6 minutes with the maximum wind speeds reached 104 mph.

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

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 20:02 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.

Jacksonville Nas (NIP), 7 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Jacksonville radar (KJAX), 24 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.

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 2015 tornado in FloridaEvery tornado in Florida since 1950Warnings in force in Florida nowThe forecast where you are

9 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

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.