Tornadoes · United States · Florida · 2016

EF0 tornado, Highland Park to Crooked Lake Park, Florida, June 1, 2016

From Highland Park to Crooked Lake Park, this EF0 tornado ran 0.7 miles across Polk County on June 1, 2016, touching down at 6:45 PM EDT and reaching 30 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $5,000 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
June 1, 2016
Touchdown
6:45 PM EDT (22:45 UTC)
Lifted
6:54 PM EDT (22:54 UTC)
On the ground
9 minutes
Path length
0.7 miles (1.1 km)
Path width
30 yards (27 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$5,000
County
Polk County
Touchdown point
27.852, -81.576
Lift-off point
27.844, -81.583
Record number
1606011645-01

What the Weather Service recorded

Sea breeze type thunderstorms developed and moved generally east to west across the Florida Peninsula during the afternoon and early evening of the 27th. One of these storms produced a brief tornado touchdown in Polk County.

Polk County Fire Rescue reported that multiple 911 calls were received of a tornado briefly touching down in the Lake Wales area. A few trees were found knocked over and two power poles were partial damaged, but no structural damage was reported.

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 forecast that day

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 20:01 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

10.8 hours before the tornado, 82 km from the path. June 1, 2016.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Tampa Bay, FL at 12:00Z on 2016-06-01Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 562 joules per kilogram, CIN -65, lifted condensation level 1001 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 2016-06-01The 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 -1 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 15 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
562 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-65 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1048 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1001 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
15 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
3 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-1 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
2 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.3 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

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

1.2 hours after it, 82 km from the path. June 2, 2016.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Tampa Bay, FL at 00:00Z on 2016-06-02Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 784 joules per kilogram, CIN -53, lifted condensation level 1441 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 2016-06-02The 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 -5 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 7 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
784 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-53 J/kg
Surface CAPE
2027 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1441 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
7 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
11 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-5 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
-32 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
6.3 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Bartow (BOW), 23 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
20:53 UTC8664.40° 0 kt1014.6
21:35 UTC89.664.40° 0 kt1014.6
21:55 UTC89.664.40° 0 kt1014.6
22:15 UTC87.864.40° 0 kt1014.6
22:35 UTC87.864.40° 0 kt1014.6
22:55 UTC84.266.20° 0 kt1014.6
23:15 UTC78.871.6250° 10 kt1014.9+TSRA
23:35 UTC75.271.60° 0 kt1014.9RA
23:55 UTC77680° 0 kt1014.9-RA
00:15 UTC75.275.20° 0 kt1015.2
00:35 UTC75.275.20° 0 kt1015.9-TSRA

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The radar

The Tampa radar (KTBW), 82 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:45 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
00:02 UTCTSTM WND DMG2 Ne CelebrationOsceola, FLLAW ENFORCEMENT REPORTS DAMAGE TO A LIFT STATION ON WEST IRLO BRONSON HIGHWAY WITH THE ROADWAY BEING BLOCKED.

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 June 1, 2016

2 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
June 111:20 AM CDTUnratedTerry, TX0.040
June 14:28 PM CDTEF0Adams, NE0.025$2,000

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.