EF0 tornado, Golden Beach, Florida, August 19, 2020

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

August 19, 2020

Touchdown

2:20 PM EDT (18:20 UTC)

Lifted

2:23 PM EDT (18:23 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

0.5 miles (0.8 km)

Path width

160 yards (146 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Miami-Dade County

Touchdown point

25.967, -80.119

Lift-off point

25.975, -80.119

Record number

2008191220-01

A robust, stationary trough over the Gulf of Mexico kept deep, south/southwest flow and rich tropical moisture over South Florida. Several short waves rotating |around the base of the trough enhanced the showers and |thunderstorms that produced a tornado over the Golden Beach area in Miami-Dade from a waterspouts and flooding from heavy rainfall.

A landfalling waterspout produced from a thunderstorm moved briefly onshore in Golden Beach as a tornado for approximately 3 minutes before lifting right before the Broward County line. The tornado moved northward at approximately 10 mph along the ocean side of Ocean Boulevard/Highway A1A from the 400 block of Ocean Boulevard to |near County Line Road. Damage consisted primarily of numerous broken/snapped tree branches, including to a large Sea Grape tree, a couple of newly-planted trees toppled, several damaged/twisted metal gates, and tossed lawn/patio furniture. Some of the debris ended up in the adjacent Atlantic Ocean. Most of the damage was confined to ocean-facing homes and properties. One home had water blown in through a set of sliding glass doors due to the force of the wind.||This damage is mainly consistent with EF-0 intensity, although one or two spots could have experienced winds close to the EF-1 threshold (80-85 mph). ||Thankfully, no injuries were reported.

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.

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 16:11 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.

Hollywood/N. Perry (HWO), 13 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The Miami radar (KAMX), 50 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 18:21 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 2020 tornado in FloridaEvery tornado in Florida since 1950Warnings in force in Florida nowThe forecast where you are

1 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.