EF0 tornado, Boca Raton, Florida, February 5, 2015

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.

Rating

EF0

Date

February 5, 2015

Touchdown

7:37 AM EST (12:37 UTC)

Lifted

7:38 AM EST (12:38 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

1.1 miles (1.8 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$8,000

County

Palm Beach County

Touchdown point

26.387, -80.143

Lift-off point

26.393, -80.127

Record number

1502050637-01

23 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS MFL, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 90 mph.

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

A cold front moved across South Florida with showers and severe thunderstorms ahead of the front. One of these severe thunderstorms spawned a tornado in Boca Raton.

A tornado touched down in the Woodfield Hunt Club community of Boca Raton at 736 AM EST. Damage consisted of several uprooted trees, several large trees snapped halfway up and a tree felled into a house. Roofing was damaged from downed trees and limbs and strong winds also removed numerous Spanish tiles from many homes. Of note was a projectile in the form of a 6-12 inch diameter tree limb which punctured a roof. The tree limb was likely carried by the tornado from an adjacent neighborhood. ||The tornado lifted just west of Jog Road and touched down again on the east side of Jog Road. This segment of the tornado was rated an EF-1. Damage total is estimated.

The tornado which had initially touched down at the Woodfield Hunt Club community in West Boca touched down again in The Colonnade community, then continued on a ENE track across St. Andrews Blvd and affecting the Les Jardins community, then lifting at Patch Reef Park south of Yamato Road and west of Military Trail. ||Damage in this segment represented EF-0 magnitude and consisted mainly of roof damage, downed trees and branches and light poles (especially at Patch Reef Park). A light pole at the park fell on a city vehicle. Total damage to park was around $8,000 and included the light pole and the windshield of the city vehicle.

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.

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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 05:20 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.

Boca Raton Airport (BCT), 3 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Miami radar (KAMX), 91 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 12:36 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

1 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.