EF0 tornado, Palma Sola, Florida, July 31, 2017

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.

Rating

EF0

Date

July 31, 2017

Touchdown

10:55 AM EDT (14:55 UTC)

Lifted

10:57 AM EDT (14:57 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

0.7 miles (1.1 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$96,000

County

Manatee County

Touchdown point

27.510, -82.660

Lift-off point

27.500, -82.660

Record number

1707310855-01

Tropical Storm Emily formed on the tail-end of a slow moving frontal boundary that was draped across the northeastern Gulf of Mexico. A weak area of low pressure developed on the 30th and slowly drifted southeast towards the Florida peninsula. Early in the morning on the 31st, satellite and radar data indicated that a tropical depression had formed about 65 miles west of Tampa Bay. The system became a tropical storm shortly before landfall just a few hours later. Emily made landfall on Anna Maria Island at 10:45 AM with maximum sustained winds of 45 mph and a minimum central pressure of 1005 mb. ||Emily was a small system and it's effects were very localized across the region. It produced one tornado along the Manatee county coast and wind gusts were observed in the 40 to 65 mph range across Pinellas, Manatee and Sarasota Counties. Emily produced areas of 4-6 inches of rain across portions of west central Florida.

Tropical Storm Emily came ashore in the area with a broad area of toppled trees and numerous branches downed. An NWS Storm Survey team found a narrow area of enhanced damage, likely associated with a brief tornado. Two barns were destroyed along with multiple greenhouses and a engineered wall was found toppled.

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

5 minutes of warning. NWS TBW issued a tornado warning for this county at 14:50 UTC, 5 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 15:15 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 Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Marginal Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 12:38 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.

Sarasota-Bradenton (SRQ), 15 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Tampa radar (KTBW), 34 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 14:56 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

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.