EF0 tornado, Davie to Miramar, Florida, September 16, 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

September 16, 2015

Touchdown

6:34 PM EDT (22:34 UTC)

Lifted

6:44 PM EDT (22:44 UTC)

On the ground

10 minutes

Path length

2.3 miles (3.7 km)

Path width

40 yards (37 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Broward County

Touchdown point

26.069, -80.321

Lift-off point

26.049, -80.351

Record number

1509161634-01

24 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS MFL, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 80 mph.

• small trees held up by wood stakes.
• small tree held up by ropes
• large oak tree branch snapped. no other damage in immediate area.
• top branch of tabebuia tree.

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

A large upper level trough of low pressure over southern Alabama along with a tropical wave across the central Gulf of Mexico placed South Florida in deep tropical moisture with scattered late afternoon and early evening thunderstorms over the mainland.

An EF-0 tornado initially touched down in Imagination Farms community north of Griffin Road and west of Flamingo Road in Davie. The tornado traveled W-SW over Imaginary Farms and uprooted several medium to large trees as well as breaking off large branches. One home had about a dozen roof tiles removed/shifted in a few places in Imaginary Farms, with most of the damage oriented in a NE-SW direction. Damage became less noticeable at Griffin Road, with only minor damage to branches.||The tornado appeared to have lifted briefly just south of Griffin Road as it entered Southwest Rances, with very little damage. Therefore, this tornado likely had a discontinuous path.||Damage increased again west of SW 148th Avenue in the Ivanhoe Estates neighborhood of Davie between Griffin and Sterling Roads as it continued to move SW. A second area of peak intensity and evidence of rotation along Castlegate Avenue north of Waterford Drive. A large black olive tree about 3 feet in diameter at the base uprooted in a southwest direction with nearby large tree branches and debris oriented in an eastward direction. One home had about a dozen tiles removed or shifted. The tornado apparently lifted just east of I-75 in Ivanhoe Estates.||In total, at least two dozen trees were uprooted or had medium to large sized branches snapped. At least two homes sustained minor roof damage. Most damage rated on low end of EF0 scale near 65 mph, with only two or three spots of peak intensity of 70 to 80 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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:55 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.

Hollywood/N. Perry (HWO), 12 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Miami radar (KAMX), 50 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:33 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

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.