EF1 tornado, St Johns Park to Bulow, Florida, December 14, 2019

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

December 14, 2019

Touchdown

5:14 AM EST (10:14 UTC)

Lifted

5:40 AM EST (10:40 UTC)

On the ground

26 minutes

Path length

19.4 miles (31.2 km)

Path width

880 yards (805 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Flagler County

Touchdown point

29.399, -81.427

Lift-off point

29.440, -81.108

Record number

1912140414-01

29 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS JAX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 110 mph.

• first visible damage near RR tracks
• northern most damage (width)
• older wood frame. not to current code.
• blown roofing and snapped softwood branches

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

On Friday, 13 December 2019, a warm front lifted and lingered across northeast Florida with surface dew points rising into the mid to upper 60s generally along and south of a line from St. Augustine to Gainesville. A strong upper level trough deepened across the central Gulf Coast region with a resultant surface low positioned over the northeast Gulf of Mexico coast just south of Panama City that evening around 10 pm EST. As the upper level trough axis started to lift and becoming positively tilted overnight into 14 December, the surface low edge farther east northeast and tracked over southeast Georgia then offshore of the local Atlantic coast through 4 am EST. The corridor of unstable low-level air remained across our southern Florida zones with surface-based CAPE values rising into the 1000-1300 J/kg range per LAPS analysis while aloft strong directional (0-6 km) bulk shear near the mid/upper level trough axis increased to 50-70 kts. The phased low-level instability, plentiful deep layer moisture and strong dynamical lift under the upper low and just south of the surface low spawned a couple of persistent supercells with long-lived mesocyclones.

A long-lived EF1 tornado tracked west to east across Flagler county during the pre-dawn hours. The tornado entered the west side of the county near Mud Lake within the Haw Creek Preserve around 5:15 am and continued a steady east to northeast track across the central part of the county and impacted Korona and then exited offshore of the local coast near Gamble Rogers Memorial State Recreation Area, about 1 mile south of Flagler Beach around 5:40 am. The storm survey revealed the most substantial damage within the Korona city limits where EF1 damage occurred. Numerous trees, powerlines and structures were damaged. One masonary structure had its roof blown off in Korona. The following are timing of reports to relayed to the NWS from Flagler County EM: 530 am 2 SSW Flagler Beach a tree was blown down through a roof of a home along Creek Bluff Run in Bulowville, 532 am many roads were closed near Korona and County Road 330 due to widespread tree damage, 532 am several structures had damage behind the White Eagle Lounge in Korona, 536 am a motorhome was flipped and had roof and deck damage along South 28th Street in Flagler Beach, 536 am oak trunks were twisted and trees heavily damaged along Creek Bluff Run, 540 am debris was across the roads and street lights were damaged between South 23rd Street and South 28th Street in South Flagler Beach, and at 540 am some structural damage was reported between south Flagler Beach and Bulowville.

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.

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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 05:43 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 Jacksonville radar (KJAX), 126 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 10:12 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 2019 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.