Tornadoes · United States · Florida · 2018

EF0 tornado, Union Park, Florida, December 9, 2018

This EF0 tornado ran 0.1 miles across Orange County on December 9, 2018, touching down at 11:54 AM EST and reaching 50 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $40,000 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
December 9, 2018
Touchdown
11:54 AM EST (16:54 UTC)
Lifted
11:55 AM EST (16:55 UTC)
On the ground
1 minutes
Path length
0.1 miles (0.2 km)
Path width
50 yards (46 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$40,000
County
Orange County
Touchdown point
28.543, -81.230
Lift-off point
28.545, -81.230
Record number
1812091054-01

What the Weather Service recorded

A weak tornado briefly occurred near Waterford Lakes in Orlando. Minor wind damage impacted a few homes.

Local media forwarded a report of a screened pool enclosure destroyed at a home on Wildlife Place in Orlando. Delayed reports from Orange County Fire Rescue indicated two nearby homes on Brown Trout Circle also experienced some minor structural damage. Residents reportedly witnessed the tornado.

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.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
14:00 UTC21:00 UTCLake Wind AdvisoryMLB
16:09 UTC16:30 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningMLB

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 Marginal Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 16:24 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.

Cape Canaveral, FL (KXMR), 12:00Z

4.9 hours before the tornado, 72 km from the path. December 9, 2018.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Cape Canaveral, FL at 12:00Z on 2018-12-09Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 430 joules per kilogram, CIN -8, lifted condensation level 588 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, Cape Canaveral, FL at 12:00Z on 2018-12-09The 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 315 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 62 knots.19395878Sfc1 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
430 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-8 J/kg
Surface CAPE
271 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
588 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
62 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
29 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
315 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
373 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.9
Supercell composite
5.2
0-3 km lapse rate
4.4 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Cape Canaveral, FL (KXMR), 00:00Z

7.1 hours after it, 72 km from the path. December 10, 2018.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Cape Canaveral, FL at 00:00Z on 2018-12-10Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 12 joules per kilogram, CIN -183, lifted condensation level 826 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, Cape Canaveral, FL at 00:00Z on 2018-12-10The 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 32 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 58 knots.1939587897Sfc1 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
12 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-183 J/kg
Surface CAPE
250 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
826 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
58 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
25 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
32 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
100 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.1
0-3 km lapse rate
5.0 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Melbourne radar (KMLB), 74 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 16:55 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
16:54 UTCTSTM WND GST 05 Wnw Avalon ParkOrange, FLSCREENED POOL ENCLOSURE DESTROYED AT A HOME AT 10826 WILDLIFE PLACE. POSSIBLE TORNADO. REPORT RELAYED VIA WOFL FOX 35 METEOROLOGIST.
16:54 UTCTSTM WND GST 505 Wnw Avalon ParkOrange, FLSCREENED POOL ENCLOSURE DESTROYED AT A HOME AT 10826 WILDLIFE PLACE. POSSIBLE TORNADO. REPORT RELAYED VIA WOFL FOX 35 METEOROLOGIST.
18:05 UTCTSTM WND GST 407 Ssw Playalinda BeachBrevard, FLWIND GUST OF 40 MPH/35 KT FROM THE SW AT USAF WIND TOWER 509.
18:10 UTCTSTM WND GST 394 S Playalinda BeachBrevard, FLMEASURED WIND GUST OF 39 MPH/34 KT FROM THE SW AT USAF WIND TOWER 311.
18:10 UTCTSTM WND GST 463 S Playalinda BeachBrevard, FLWIND GUST OF 46 MPH/40 KT FROM THE SW AT USAF WIND TOWER 211.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2018 tornado in FloridaEvery tornado in Florida since 1950Warnings in force in Florida nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of December 9, 2018

2 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
December 98:57 AM ESTEF1Pasco, FL0.125$50,000
December 911:21 AM ESTEF1Hillsborough, FL2.850$10,000

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.