EF0 tornado, Fort Meade to Crooked Lake Park, Florida, December 20, 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

December 20, 2018

Touchdown

9:14 AM EST (14:14 UTC)

Lifted

9:15 AM EST (14:15 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.1 miles (0.1 km)

Path width

30 yards (27 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

1

Property damage

$45,000

County

Polk County

Touchdown point

27.829, -81.601

Lift-off point

27.830, -81.601

Record number

1812200814-01

A strong cold front moved southeast through the eastern Gulf of Mexico and Florida Peninsula on the 20th, preceded by a squall line. The storms produced 4 tornadoes, and damaging wind gusts, in addition to strong gradient winds behind the front on the 21st. The strong onshore winds also produced coastal flooding along the coast and moderate to major beach erosion from Pinellas County to Lee County. .

The sheriff's office reported trees uprooted near US 98 and Pool Branch Road but no structures were affected. The only damage indicator is hardwood trees uprooted.

Damage was found to the southeast side of a 4-unit duplex. The southeast unit sustained partial uplift of roofing material and broken windows on the east side of the building. Some roof damage extended to the the northeast unit as well. The building was built before the building code changes in the mid 1990s. Estimated damage including contents is $45,000.

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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 12:55 UTC and running to 19:43 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 Enhanced Risk, with a 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 12:58 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.

The Tampa radar (KTBW), 80 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 14:14 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

4 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.