Tornadoes · United States · Florida · 2019

EF0 tornado, Tice, Florida, May 20, 2019

This EF0 tornado ran 0.1 miles across Lee County on May 20, 2019, touching down at 6:48 PM EDT and reaching 30 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $25,000 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
May 20, 2019
Touchdown
6:48 PM EDT (22:48 UTC)
Lifted
6:50 PM EDT (22:50 UTC)
On the ground
2 minutes
Path length
0.1 miles (0.1 km)
Path width
30 yards (27 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$25,000
County
Lee County
Touchdown point
26.668, -81.821
Lift-off point
26.669, -81.822
Record number
1905201648-01

What the Weather Service recorded

A brief tornado developed near a mobile home park in Tice and damaged one home before moving into the Caloosahatchee River as a waterspout.

Broadcast media pictures and videos showed damage to the|roof and lanai of a mobile home in Tice, near the location of where|a waterspout was photographed around the same time. An investigation|of the damage pictures concluded that an EF-0 briefly touched down and|damaged the mobile home, before lifting back up then touching down|again over the Caloosahatchee River as a waterspout.

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.

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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 20:02 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.

Tampa Bay, FL (KTBW), 12:00Z

10.8 hours before the tornado, 129 km from the path. May 20, 2019.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Tampa Bay, FL at 12:00Z on 2019-05-20Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 59 joules per kilogram, CIN -69, lifted condensation level 1301 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°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, Tampa Bay, FL at 12:00Z on 2019-05-20The 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 2 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 7 knots.1939Sfc1 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
59 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-69 J/kg
Surface CAPE
702 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1301 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
7 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
2 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
2 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
-5 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
4.9 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Tampa Bay, FL (KTBW), 00:00Z

1.2 hours after it, 129 km from the path. May 21, 2019.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Tampa Bay, FL at 00:00Z on 2019-05-21Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 6 joules per kilogram, CIN -45, lifted condensation level 2036 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°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, Tampa Bay, FL at 00:00Z on 2019-05-21The 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 25 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 11 knots.1939Sfc1 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
6 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-45 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1071 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
2036 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
11 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
7 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
25 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
14 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
7.7 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Tampa radar (KTBW), 129 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:49 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.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2019 tornado in FloridaEvery tornado in Florida since 1950Warnings in force in Florida nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of May 20, 2019

38 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
May 209:50 AM MSTEF0Coconino, AZ1.010
May 202:05 PM CDTUnratedDickens, TX1.030
May 203:00 PM CDTUnratedCottle, TX0.210
May 203:01 PM CDTEF0Cottle, TX1.920
May 203:29 PM CDTEF0Collingsworth, TX0.350
May 203:31 PM CDTUnratedKingfisher, OK0.540
May 203:43 PM CDTUnratedKingfisher, OK3.7150
May 203:46 PM CDTUnratedKingfisher, OK0.550
May 203:50 PM CDTEF1Logan, OK6.070$3,000
May 203:54 PM CDTUnratedLogan, OK1.040
May 204:08 PM CDTEF1Logan, OK0.340$1,000
May 204:14 PM CDTEF1Cherokee, KS2.2440$25,000
May 204:23 PM CDTEF1Noble, OK to KS, MO3.0100$75,000
May 204:23 PM CDTEF1Crawford, KS to MO10.71,200$1.1 million
May 204:36 PM CDTEF0Kingfisher, OK0.120
May 204:37 PM CDTUnratedHarmon, OK0.550
May 204:38 PM CDTEF0Kingfisher, OK0.120
May 204:45 PM CDTUnratedHarmon, OK0.330
May 204:55 PM CDTEF0Kingfisher, OK1.420
May 204:59 PM CDTUnratedHarmon, OK0.120
May 205:05 PM CDTEF1Noble, OK7.7100$75,000
May 205:09 PM CDTEF0Logan, OK0.350$1,000
May 205:12 PM CDTEF2Greer, OK11.01,200$300,000
May 205:23 PM CDTEF3Ector, TX5.8225$400,000
May 205:38 PM CDTUnratedNoble, OK0.230
May 205:38 PM CDTUnratedGreer, OK0.240
May 206:14 PM CDTUnratedKiowa, OK0.530
May 206:45 PM CDTUnratedJasper, MO0.250
May 206:47 PM CDTUnratedDickens, TX3.4300
May 206:52 PM CDTEF2Midland, TX6.61502$250,000
May 209:05 PM CDTEF0Tulsa, OK0.5100$2,000
May 209:08 PM CDTUnratedFisher, TX0.030
May 2010:01 PM CDTEF1Okmulgee, OK4.4450$25,000
May 2010:09 PM CDTEF0Wagoner, OK0.875
May 2010:29 PM CDTUnratedHaskell, TX0.030
May 2010:29 PM CDTEF2Cherokee, OK21.02,7001$950,000
May 2010:35 PM CDTEF1Mayes, OK3.61,100$10,000
May 2010:54 PM CDTEF1Delaware, OK6.9600$50,000

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.