Tornadoes · United States · Florida · 2016

EF0 tornado, Key Colony Beach, Florida, January 8, 2016

This EF0 tornado ran 0.1 miles across Monroe County on January 8, 2016, touching down at 6:30 AM EST and reaching 20 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $2,000 of property damage.

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
January 8, 2016
Touchdown
6:30 AM EST (11:30 UTC)
Lifted
6:31 AM EST (11:31 UTC)
On the ground
1 minutes
Path length
0.1 miles (0.1 km)
Path width
20 yards (18 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$2,000
County
Monroe County
Touchdown point
24.732, -81.014
Lift-off point
24.732, -81.013
Record number
1601080530-01

What the Weather Service recorded

A waterspout associated with a developing rain shower moved northeast and made landfall as a tornado over a causeway in the Coco Plum section of the City of Marathon, Florida. Minor damage resulted as the tornado exited the causeway and dissipated as a waterspout.

A waterspout was observed as a condensation funnel cloud over a marine basin approximately 630 am EST north of Key Colony Beach and just west of the Coco Plum Drive causeway. The waterspout was observed crossing the causeway as a tornado at a seafood distribution business damaging a metal overhang. Tarps and canvas coverings on vessels docked in the adjacent marina were partially or completely removed, with a few torn. No structural damage to buildings or vessels was observed. The tornado exited the causeway as a waterspout and dissipated very shortly thereafter.

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.

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 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.

Key West, FL (KEYW), 00:00Z

11.5 hours before the tornado, 74 km from the path. January 8, 2016.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Key West, FL at 00:00Z on 2016-01-08Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 77 joules per kilogram, CIN -132, lifted condensation level 842 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, Key West, FL at 00:00Z on 2016-01-08The 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 94 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 45 knots.1939587897Sfc1 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
77 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-132 J/kg
Surface CAPE
99 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
842 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
45 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
16 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
94 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
101 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.1
0-3 km lapse rate
4.7 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Key West, FL (KEYW), 12:00Z

0.5 hours after it, 74 km from the path. January 8, 2016.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Key West, FL at 12:00Z on 2016-01-08Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 109 joules per kilogram, CIN -65, lifted condensation level 1148 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, Key West, FL at 12:00Z on 2016-01-08The 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 77 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 46 knots.1939587897Sfc1 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
109 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-65 J/kg
Surface CAPE
719 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1148 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
46 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
11 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
77 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
165 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.9
0-3 km lapse rate
6.1 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Key West radar (KBYX), 71 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 11:29 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
11:38 UTCTORNADOMarathonMiddle Keys In Mon, FLAT APPROXIMATELY 638 AM EST A WATERSPOUT CAME ASHORE ON COCO PLUM DRIVE IN MARATHON. THIS TORNADO CAUSED MINOR CANOPY DAMAGE TO A BUSINESS IN THE AREA. COUNTY EMERGENCY MANAGERS ARE ASSESSING THE DAMAGE AT THIS TIME. MAG

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

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.