Tornadoes · United States · Florida · 2016
EF0 tornado, Sunniland, Florida, February 16, 2016
This EF0 tornado ran 4.0 miles across Collier County on February 16, 2016, touching down at 5:10 AM EST 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.
EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mph
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
- EF0
- Date
- February 16, 2016
- Touchdown
- 5:10 AM EST (10:10 UTC)
- Lifted
- 5:17 AM EST (10:17 UTC)
- On the ground
- 7 minutes
- Path length
- 4.0 miles (6.4 km)
- Path width
- 10 yards (9 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Collier County
- Touchdown point
- 26.220, -81.180
- Lift-off point
- 26.240, -81.120
- Record number
- 1602160410-01
What the Weather Service recorded
A strong squall line intensified well ahead of a cold front over the eastern Gulf of Mexico during the early morning hours of February 16th. The line produced straight line wind damage near Naples as it moved onshore, along with tornadoes in Glades and Collier counties. Three additional tornadoes developed across the east coast metro in Broward and Miami-Dade counties, as the squall line interacted with the southeasterly flow along the coast. In addition to the tornadoes, straight line wind gusts of 60 to 70 mph were reported across eastern Palm Beach and Broward counties, producing damage in Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, Pembroke Pines, and Miramar. Small hail was also reported in Davie and Sunrise with a tornadic storm.
FHP officer travelling eastbound on I-75 reported a tornado touchdown north of the highway around mile marker 70 at 510 am. The officer lost site of the tornado at mile marker 66 at 517 am as it continued to travel northeast away from the interstate.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
12 minutes of warning. NWS MFL issued a tornado warning for this county at 09:58 UTC, 12 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 10:30 UTC.
The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 07:19 UTC and running to 12:31 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 07:19 UTC | 12:31 UTC | Tornado Watch | MFL |
| 09:00 UTC | 09:30 UTC | Tornado Warning | MFL |
| 09:17 UTC | 10:00 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | MFL |
| 09:29 UTC | 10:00 UTC | Tornado Warning | MFL |
| 09:58 UTC | 10:30 UTC | Tornado Warning | MFL |
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 05:24 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), 00:00Z
10.2 hours before the tornado, 97 km from the path. February 16, 2016.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 636 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -1 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 775 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 603 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 39 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 25 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 140 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 276 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 1.3
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.7 K/km
Miami, FL (KMFL), 12:00Z
1.8 hours after it, 97 km from the path. February 16, 2016.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 1201 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -4 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 1458 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 668 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 61 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 25 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 271 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 383 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 2.1
- Supercell composite
- 8.6
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 6.3 K/km
The radar
The Miami radar (KAMX), 101 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 10:09 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 09:14 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 1 E Belle Meade | Collier, FL | SEVERAL MOBILE HOME CARPORTS DAMAGED ALONG AMETHYST AVENUE IN THE ENCHANTING SHORES CO-OP PARK. AN ADDITIONAL MOBILE HOME IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD SUFFERED DAMAGE TO ITS ROOF. TIME ESTIMATED FROM RADAR. |
| 10:10 UTC | TORNADO | 10 Ese Sunniland | Collier, FL | FHP OFFICER HEADED EASTBOUND ON I-75 REPORTED A TORNADO TOUCHDOWN NORTH OF THE HIGHWAY AROUND MILE MARKER 70 AT 510AM. THE OFFICER LOST SITE OF THE TORNADO AT MILE MARKER 66 AT 517AM AS IT CONTINUED TO TRAVEL NORTHEAST A |
| 10:10 UTC | TORNADO | 9 E Miles City | Collier, FL | FHP OFFICER HEADED EASTBOUND ON I-75 REPORTED A TORNADO TOUCHDOWN NORTH OF THE HIGHWAY AROUND MILE MARKER 70 AT 510AM. THE OFFICER LOST SITE OF THE TORNADO AT MILE MARKER 66 AT 517AM AS IT CONTINUED TO TRAVEL NORTHEAST A |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2016 tornado in FloridaEvery tornado in Florida since 1950Warnings in force in Florida nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of February 16, 2016
6 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| February 16 | 4:49 AM EST | EF1 | Glades, FL | 1.8 | 75 | |||
| February 16 | 7:05 AM EST | EF0 | Broward, FL | 6.7 | 50 | |||
| February 16 | 7:10 AM EST | EF1 | Broward, FL | 3.5 | 50 | $160,000 | ||
| February 16 | 7:34 AM EST | EF0 | Broward, FL | 1.9 | 50 | |||
| February 16 | 7:51 AM EST | EF1 | Miami-Dade, FL | 3.8 | 150 | |||
| February 16 | 8:51 AM EST | EF1 | Carteret, NC | 4.2 | 167 | $100,000 |
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.