Tornadoes · United States · Florida · 2020
EF0 tornado, Orange Bend, Florida, June 7, 2020
This EF0 tornado ran 0.0 miles across Lake County on June 7, 2020, touching down at 3:40 PM EDT and reaching 25 yards wide. It killed nobody.
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.
EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mph
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
EF4166 to 200 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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
- June 7, 2020
- Touchdown
- 3:40 PM EDT (19:40 UTC)
- Path length
- 0.0 miles (0.0 km)
- Path width
- 25 yards (23 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Lake County
- Touchdown point
- 28.898, -81.812
- Lift-off point
- 28.898, -81.812
- Record number
- 2006071340-01
The damage survey
5 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS MLB, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 65 mph.
Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.
What the Weather Service recorded
As Tropical Storm Cristobal approached the northern Gulf Coast, scattered storms developed in Lake County. Two of the thunderstorms became severe and produced brief, weak tornadoes near Lisbon and Tavares.
Numerous photos and videos from trained spotters showed a brief tornado touchdown in the Emeralda Marsh Conservation Area just north of Lisbon. The tornado was on the ground less than one minute west of Emeralda Island Road between Lake Griffith and Lake Yale. The tornado produced no damage as it was over a marsh.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
27 minutes of warning. NWS MLB issued a tornado warning for this county at 19:13 UTC, 27 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 19:45 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 19:13 UTC | 19:45 UTC | Tornado Warning | MLB |
| 19:44 UTC | 20:15 UTC | Tornado Warning | MLB |
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 16:30 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
7.7 hours before the tornado, 137 km from the path. June 7, 2020.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 2239 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -5 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 4232 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 680 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 21 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 22 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 136 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 252 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 1.0
- Supercell composite
- 8.3
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.6 K/km
Cape Canaveral, FL (KXMR), 00:00Z
4.3 hours after it, 137 km from the path. June 8, 2020.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 2042 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -7 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 3504 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 714 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 26 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 16 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 85 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 122 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.6
- Supercell composite
- 4.6
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.8 K/km
The radar
The Melbourne radar (KMLB), 143 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 19:41 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) | Report | Where | County | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19:40 UTC | TORNADO | 4 Se Emeralda | Lake, FL | RECIEVED SEVERAL PHOTOS AND VIDEOS VIA SOCIAL MEDIA OF A BRIEF TORNADO TOUCHING DOWN IN THE AREA OF LAKE GRIFFIN AND LAKE YALE IN LAKE COUNTY AROUND 340PM. |
| 19:47 UTC | FUNNEL CLOUD | 4 Se Emeralda | Lake, FL | MULTIPLE REPORTS FROM TRAINED SPOTTERS BETWEEN 347-350PM OF A FUNNEL CLOUD NEAR LAKE YALE. ONE SPOTTER NOTED IT WAS 3/4 OF THE WAY TO THE GROUND. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2020 tornado in FloridaEvery tornado in Florida since 1950Warnings in force in Florida nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of June 7, 2020
10 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 7 | 3:30 PM EDT | EF0 | Columbia, FL | 1.4 | 100 | |||
| June 7 | 4:05 PM EDT | EF0 | Union, FL | 0.0 | 25 | |||
| June 7 | 6:41 PM EDT | EF0 | Lake, FL | 0.5 | 20 | |||
| June 7 | 6:05 PM CDT | EF1 | Hyde, SD | 0.4 | 50 | |||
| June 7 | 6:17 PM CDT | EF1 | Faulk, SD | 1.0 | 70 | |||
| June 7 | 6:25 PM CDT | EF1 | Faulk, SD | 0.7 | 150 | |||
| June 7 | 6:45 PM CDT | Unrated | McIntosh, ND | 0.2 | 30 | |||
| June 7 | 7:20 PM CDT | Unrated | Dickey, ND | 0.4 | 30 | |||
| June 7 | 8:30 PM CDT | EF0 | Brown, SD | 5.3 | 50 | |||
| June 7 | 8:52 PM CDT | EF0 | Nelson, ND | 0.1 | 50 |
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.