Tornadoes · United States · Florida · 2015

EF0 tornado, Vanderbilt Beach, Florida, September 29, 2015

This EF0 tornado ran 0.1 miles across Collier County on September 29, 2015, touching down at 10:00 AM EDT and reaching 10 yards wide. It killed nobody.

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.

  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.

The record

Rating
EF0
Date
September 29, 2015
Touchdown
10:00 AM EDT (14:00 UTC)
Lifted
10:02 AM EDT (14:02 UTC)
On the ground
2 minutes
Path length
0.1 miles (0.1 km)
Path width
10 yards (9 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Collier County
Touchdown point
26.250, -81.823
Lift-off point
26.250, -81.822
Record number
1509290800-01

What the Weather Service recorded

Scattered showers and storms over the Gulf of Mexico during the morning hours moved ashore Collier County. One storm produced wind damage in a mobile home park in Naples, with another producing a waterspout that came ashore as a brief tornado. Heavy rains with these storms aggravated ongoing tidal flooding leading to minor flooding across portions of Naples.

Several videos posted on social media show waterspout that developed near the coast over the water moved onto the beach between the Ritz-Carlton and Remington at Bay Colony hotels. Tornado briefly reached into the dune line where it picked up branches and tree debris before dissipating.

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)ExpiredProductOffice
15:55 UTC18:45 UTCFlood AdvisoryMFL

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 12:48 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.

Miami, FL (KMFL), 12:00Z

2.0 hours before the tornado, 160 km from the path. September 29, 2015.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Miami, FL at 12:00Z on 2015-09-29Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 625 joules per kilogram, CIN -39, lifted condensation level 962 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
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.
HodographHodograph, Miami, FL at 12:00Z on 2015-09-29The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 44 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 10 knots.1939Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
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
625 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-39 J/kg
Surface CAPE
771 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
962 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
10 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
8 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
44 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
65 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.0 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Miami, FL (KMFL), 00:00Z

10.0 hours after it, 160 km from the path. September 30, 2015.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Miami, FL at 00:00Z on 2015-09-30Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 760 joules per kilogram, CIN -21, lifted condensation level 729 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
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.
HodographHodograph, Miami, FL at 00:00Z on 2015-09-30The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 81 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 17 knots.1939Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
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
760 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-21 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1250 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
729 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
17 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
21 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
81 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
114 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
1.3
0-3 km lapse rate
5.0 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Miami radar (KAMX), 158 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 13:59 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)ReportWhereCountyRemark
14:00 UTCWATER SPOUT1 S Vanderbilt BeachCollier, FLVIDEO POSTED ON SOCIAL MEDIA SHOWS WATERSPOUT JUST OFFSHORE RITZ CARLTON IN NAPLES.
14:05 UTCTORNADO1 Nnw Pelican BayCollier, FLVIDEO OBTAINED VIA SOCIAL MEDIA DEPICTS WATERSPOUT COMING ASHORE NEAR THE WINDSOR CONDOMINUMS OFF BAY COLONY DRIVE. SEVERAL BRANCHES AND OTHER DEBRIS SEEN FLYING BEFORE TORNADO DISSIPATES LESS THAN 1 MINUTE AFTER REACHIN
14:40 UTCTSTM WND DMG1 N East NaplesCollier, FLSEVERAL ROOFS BLOWN OFF OF MOBILE HOMES IN THE CAPE SABLE LAKES MOBILE HOME PARK. ADDITIONAL TREES AND BRANCHES WERE DOWNED. SOME DEBRIS WAS BLOWN INTO ADJACENT NEIGHBORHOOD. STREETS IMPACTED INCLUDE CAPE SABLE DRIVE AND
14:40 UTCTSTM WND DMG1 N East NaplesCollier, FLSURVEY BY COLLIER COUNTY EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT STAFF FOUND ROOF AND CARPORT DAMAGE TO AT LEAST FOUR MOBILE HOMES IN THE CAPE SABLE LAKES COMMUNITY SOUTH OF RADIO ROAD. STREETS IMPACTED INCLUDE CAPE SABLE DRIVE AND CAPE HA
15:00 UTCFLOOD3 S Pelican BayCollier, FLNAPLES CITY OFFICIALS REPORT FLOODING ALONG GULF SHORE BOULEVARD IN THE MOORINGS AND PARK SHORE AREAS.
15:00 UTCFLOODNaplesCollier, FLCOLLIER COUNTY SHERIFFS OFFICE REPORTED WATER ON GOLDEN GATE PARKWAY IN FRONT OF NAPLES HIGH SCHOOL AS WELL AS AT INTERSECTION OF 41 AVE SW.
15:00 UTCFLOODNaplesCollier, FLSTREET FLOODING IN OLD NAPLES AREA. COMBINATION OF HEAVY RAIN AND HIGH TIDE.
15:15 UTCFLOOD2 E NaplesCollier, FLREPORT FROM COLLIER SHERIFFS OFFICE OF FLOODING ON DAVIS BLVD BETWEEN US 41 AND AIRPORT-PULLING ROAD... AS WELL AS ON AIPORT ROAD BETWEEN ESTEY AVE AND GLADES BOULEVARD.

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

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2015 tornado in FloridaEvery tornado in Florida since 1950Warnings in force in Florida nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of September 29, 2015

2 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
September 2910:02 PM EDTEF0Howard, MD4.475
September 2912:40 AM EDTEF1Lancaster, PA2.575$4.0 million

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.