EF1 tornado, Loxahatchee to Juno Beach, Florida, January 23, 2017

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

January 23, 2017

Touchdown

1:40 AM EST (06:40 UTC)

Lifted

1:49 AM EST (06:49 UTC)

On the ground

9 minutes

Path length

5.8 miles (9.3 km)

Path width

130 yards (119 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$1.0 million

County

Palm Beach County

Touchdown point

26.860, -80.143

Lift-off point

26.893, -80.057

Record number

1701230040-01

37 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 95 mph.

• just west of turnpike bridge.
• metal bleachers at Benjamin School
• few shingles north side of house.
• car back windows broken. house windows and garage door damaged by flying debris.

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 January 23rd. The line produced tornadoes in Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties. In addition to the tornadoes, straight line wind gusts of 60 mph or greater occurred in Broward and Miami-Dade counties. An estimated 40,000 to 50,000 customers lost power in South Florida.

Pictures were received of damage consistent with a tornado in The Acreage. First indication of damage and probable touchdown was near 180th Avenue North and 76th Street North, with a ENE path to Mandarin Boulevard and 78th Road North where borderline EF-1 damage to trees was noted. From Mandarin Boulevard, a break in the damage was observed for over a mile, with damage once again seen at Seminole Pratt Whitney Road and 84th Court North. Damage continued to Hall Boulevard and 85th Road North where the tornado likely lifted.||Damage was to trees and fences along the path. Almost all of the damage was EF-0 (70-80 mph), with one or two spots of EF-1 damage (85-90 mph winds).

Tornado damage was first noted in the Mirabella neighborhood of Palm Beach Gardens west of Florida Turnpike between PGA Boulevard and Donald Ross Road, then followed a somewhat discontinuous path ENE across Palm Beach Gardens to Juno Beach where it moved offshore at the Juno Beach Pier. ||EF-1 damage (winds around 90 mph) was concentrated mainly in the Mirabella neighborhood and east of I-95 at The Benjamin School. A few homes had tiles removed in Mirabella, causing broken windows from flying debris. At The Benjamin School Upper Campus, a full set of metal bleachers was blown across a football field for at least 50 yards, with some of the pieces of the bleachers landing in an adjacent wooded area well over 100 yards away. Debris from this location ended up as far away as Dwyer High School about 500 yards east from the original location. At Dwyer High School, the tornadic winds as well as flying debris broke windows, damaged a softball field and caused a small hole in the ceiling over a classroom in the school's main building.||Most of the remainder of the damage along the path was rated EF-0 (winds 65 to 85 mph) and consisted mainly of broken tree branches, uprooted trees and minor roof and fence damage. Areas of concentrated damage were in the Evergrene Community, along Donald Ross Road just east of Old Dixie Highway, and at the Juno Beach Condo mobile home park where 8 units sustained damage. The tornado moved offshore at the Juno Beach Pier around 149 AM where a wind gust of 87 mph was recorded at Juno Beach Pier at 150 AM EDT. The roof was lifted off of one lifeguard stand near the pier, and wood railings were damaged at the north side of the pier. ||Estimate of damage at Dwyer High School is between $500,000 and $1 million, with damage estimates not received from other locations.

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

23 minutes of warning. NWS MFL issued a tornado warning for this county at 06:17 UTC, 23 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 06:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 02:57 UTC and running to 09:00 UTC.

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 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), 144 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 06:38 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 2017 tornado in FloridaEvery tornado in Florida since 1950Warnings in force in Florida nowThe forecast where you are

2 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.