EF0 tornado, Gulf City to Ruskin, Florida, April 23, 2018

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

April 23, 2018

Touchdown

10:03 PM EDT (02:03 UTC)

Lifted

10:07 PM EDT (02:07 UTC)

On the ground

4 minutes

Path length

1.0 miles (1.5 km)

Path width

40 yards (37 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$50,000

County

Hillsborough County

Touchdown point

27.701, -82.459

Lift-off point

27.705, -82.444

Record number

1804232003-01

1 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS TBW, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 70 mph.

• Carport completely removed. Half landed across the street and the other half went across the river in Paradise Mobile Home Park.

Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.

A small shower moved onshore during the evening hours, producing a brief tornado over Ruskin.

A brief and narrow damage track was found by an NWS storm survey crew, with scattered debris indicating an EF-0 tornado with a peak wind speed of 70 MPH. The tornado formed west-southwest of the US Highway 41 bridge that crosses the Little Manatee River in Ruskin, FL. The tornado traveled east northeast and caused EF-0 damage to the Paradise Mobile Home Park. Wind speeds were based on mobile home and tree damage. Damage consisted of mobile home roof damage (including a collapsed car port) along with 4-5 inch snapped oak limb and fence damage. Light weight debris was thrown several hundred feet. Additionally, a shed and large construction dumpster were also moved several feet in a different direction to debris.

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

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 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 Tampa radar (KTBW), 5 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 02:03 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 2018 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.