EF1 tornado, Biscayne Gardens to Golden Beach, Florida, February 16, 2016

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

February 16, 2016

Touchdown

7:51 AM EST (12:51 UTC)

Lifted

7:59 AM EST (12:59 UTC)

On the ground

8 minutes

Path length

3.8 miles (6.1 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Miami-Dade County

Touchdown point

25.955, -80.216

Lift-off point

25.952, -80.155

Record number

1602160651-01

51 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 108 mph.

• Metal awning siding damage.
• tree appears weak and top heavy. blown to the east.
• blown to east from main branch. no other damage in immediate area.
• carport twisted. corner of roof lifted.

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

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.

The tornado intially touched down along NW 197th Terrace and between NW 7th Court and NW 9th Avenue, doing damage to a metal awning and siding on a home. Several trees and large branches were blown down and broken to the east along NW 198th Street and NW 7th Court. The damage path continued to the east-southeast, with numerous downed trees and large limbs broken in the neighborhoods between NW 193rd Street and 197th Street to the north and south and NE 7th Street and NW 2nd Avenue to the east and west. The most significant damage in this area was a twisted carport on a house along NW 8th Court near NW 196th Street, where the corner of the roof was also lifted. Along NW 2nd Avenue, the siding was torn off of a fast food restaurant and blown to the east. The damage path continued to the east where additional trees and branches were snapped along NW 193rd Terrace and NW 193rd Street between NW 1st Place and NE 2nd Avenue. The damage path then briefly widened along Sierra Drive between Ives Dairy Road and NW 191st Street with sporadic EF1 damage ranging from snapped large trees to damage to the west facing shingles on an older masonary apartment building. Additional EF1 tree damage then occured along NE 195th and NE 196th Streets. The tornado then crossed I-95 where a semi-truck was blown off the road. The most significant damage occured along NE 191st Street and NE 14th Avenue where several power poles where tilted to the side, coconut palm trees uprooted, and the roofs of two apartment buildings where damaged. The damage path was then sporadic until the tornado crossed NE 18th Avenue, uprooting and snapping additional trees between NE 19th Place and NE 23rd Avenue and NE 191st Drive. The damage path ended along NE 191st Street before reaching the nearby canal, where one home sufferred roof damage, an electrical pole was bent, and tennis court fence blown down.

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 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 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.

The Miami radar (KAMX), 44 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 12:51 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 2016 tornado in FloridaEvery tornado in Florida since 1950Warnings in force in Florida nowThe forecast where you are

6 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.