Tornadoes · United States · Florida · 2016

EF0 tornado, Duette, Florida, July 11, 2016

This EF0 tornado ran 0.1 miles across Manatee County on July 11, 2016, touching down at 7:00 PM EDT and reaching 20 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
July 11, 2016
Touchdown
7:00 PM EDT (23:00 UTC)
Lifted
7:02 PM EDT (23:02 UTC)
On the ground
2 minutes
Path length
0.1 miles (0.1 km)
Path width
20 yards (18 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Manatee County
Touchdown point
27.600, -82.120
Lift-off point
27.600, -82.121
Record number
1607111700-01

What the Weather Service recorded

Seabreeze thunderstorms developed late in the afternoon with easterly flow in place. A brief tornado developed in a rural section of Manatee County with a developing thunderstorm complex. No damage was reported. Additionally, a lightning strike sparked a fire to a warehouse in Hillsborough County.

A tornado was spotted in a very rural portion of Manatee County near Duette. The exact location was unknown due to the rural nature of the area but numerous pictures and videos showed the circulation reaching the ground. No damage was reported.

From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.

The warnings

1 minute of warning. NWS TBW issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:59 UTC, 1 minute before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:15 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
22:59 UTC23:15 UTCTornado WarningTBW

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 19:59 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.

Tampa Bay, FL (KTBW), 12:00Z

11.0 hours before the tornado, 30 km from the path. July 11, 2016.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Tampa Bay, FL at 12:00Z on 2016-07-11Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 1700 joules per kilogram, CIN -32, lifted condensation level 954 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, Tampa Bay, FL at 12:00Z on 2016-07-11The 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 13 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
1700 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-32 J/kg
Surface CAPE
2845 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
954 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
10 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
6 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
13 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
13 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.4 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Tampa Bay, FL (KTBW), 00:00Z

1.0 hours after it, 30 km from the path. July 12, 2016.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Tampa Bay, FL at 00:00Z on 2016-07-12Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 2144 joules per kilogram, CIN -23, lifted condensation level 1300 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, Tampa Bay, FL at 00:00Z on 2016-07-12The 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 55 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 3 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
2144 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-23 J/kg
Surface CAPE
4205 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1300 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
3 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
11 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
55 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
83 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
7.3 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Tampa radar (KTBW), 30 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:01 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
22:44 UTCFUNNEL CLOUD1 S Fort GreenHardee, FLPUBLIC REPORTED A FUNNEL CLOUD WEST OF FORT GREEN SPRINGS.
23:00 UTCTORNADO1 N DuetteManatee, FLCONFIRMED TORNADO NEAR DUETTE. NO REPORTED DAMAGE. LOCATION IS ESTIMATED AND MAY NEED TO BE UPDATED.
00:16 UTCMARINE TSTM WIND 43Macdill Air Force BaseHillsborough, FLPEAK WIND GUST OF 37 KNOTS REPORTED.
00:26 UTCMARINE TSTM WIND 44Macdill Air Force BaseHillsborough, FLPEAK WIND GUST OF 38 KNOTS REPORTED.

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 July 11, 2016

5 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
July 115:25 PM CDTEF2Meeker, MN3.1100
July 115:52 PM CDTEF2Meeker, MN2.24001$50,000
July 115:58 PM CDTEF1Stearns, MN4.0250
July 1111:41 PM CDTEF1Iron, WI to MI2.3100$50,000
July 1111:55 PM CDTEF1Gogebic, MI2.4200$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.