EF1 tornado, Aladdin City, Florida, May 24, 2020

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

May 24, 2020

Touchdown

1:30 AM EDT (05:30 UTC)

Lifted

1:43 AM EDT (05:43 UTC)

On the ground

13 minutes

Path length

4.8 miles (7.8 km)

Path width

40 yards (37 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Miami-Dade County

Touchdown point

25.574, -80.452

Lift-off point

25.619, -80.511

Record number

2005242330-01

Upper-level troughing remained prominent across the Gulf of Mexico with a speed max extending east-northeast from the Bay of Campeche into the northwest Caribbean Sea. A decaying Mesoscale Convective Vortex (MCV) was lifting north through the Atlantic waters while surface troughing extended from the southern Florida Peninsula southwest into the southern Gulf of Mexico. Given the diffluent pattern aloft, subtle vorticity perturbations, the remnant MCV, and the surface trough, plentiful sources for lift were evident across South Florida that allowed for the development of scattered to numerous showers and thunderstorms. Additionally, plenty of moisture was distributed areawide with rainfall rates exceeding 2 inches per hour. Abundant moisture along with preceding heavy rainfall and antecedent conditions led to widespread flooding across Miami-Dade and Broward counties. Furthermore, increasing low-level shear behind the MCV whipped up a brief tornado in Miami-Dade County and a funnel cloud in Broward County.

NWS storm survey team found damage consistent with an EF-1 tornado that developed around the Miami Everglades RV Resort and moved discontinuously northwest to near SW 197th Avenue and SW 156th Street. Several campers were tipped over at the Miami Everglades RV Resort, consistent with stronger winds around 90 mph per radar-based statistical model. The majority of the remaining damage was limited to trees and fencing starting east of Krome Avenue around SW 192nd Street.

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

3 minutes of warning. NWS MFL issued a tornado warning for this county at 05:27 UTC, 3 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 06:00 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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 00:48 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 Miami radar (KAMX), 7 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 05:30 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

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.