EF0 tornado, Oakhurst to Seminole, Florida, October 18, 2019

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

October 18, 2019

Touchdown

9:29 PM EDT (01:29 UTC)

Lifted

9:32 PM EDT (01:32 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

0.3 miles (0.5 km)

Path width

30 yards (27 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$100,000

County

Pinellas County

Touchdown point

27.840, -82.791

Lift-off point

27.844, -82.789

Record number

1910181929-01

Tropical Storm Nestor developed in the Gulf of Mexico and moved northeast, making landfall on St. Vincent Island in the Florida Panhandle on the afternoon of the 19th. The bulk of the convection developed on the eastern and southeastern side of the storm, with a couple bands of showers and storms moving into the west coast of the Florida Peninsula. These bands of storms produced 3 confirmed tornadoes, including one EF-2 tornado in Polk County. Otherwise, straight line winds were minimal in west central and southwest Florida and caused little impacts. ||The highest storm total rainfall in west central and southwest Florida was 7.77 inches in Baskin in Pinellas County, with other areas in Pinellas and parts of Hillsborough County seeing 5 to 6 inches, causing minor nuisance flooding. ||The highest storm surge in the area was 3.6 feet at Cedar Key. Taking into account the astronomical tide cycle, this resulted in a peak water level of 2.27 feet MHHW at 5:18 AM EDT on the 19th.

Damage was reported to several homes in the Twelve Oaks Mobile Home Park in Seminole. A few homes had roof, window, and carport damage, and several trees were knocked down. No injuries were reported.

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

26 minutes of warning. NWS TBW issued a tornado warning for this county at 01:03 UTC, 26 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:45 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 Marginal Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:41 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), 41 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:29 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.