EF0 tornado, Bulow, Florida, April 25, 2021

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

April 25, 2021

Touchdown

7:09 AM EDT (11:09 UTC)

Lifted

7:10 AM EDT (11:10 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.3 miles (0.4 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Flagler County

Touchdown point

29.425, -81.127

Lift-off point

29.428, -81.127

Record number

2104250509-01

A potent storm system developing over the lower MS River Valley tracked eastward across the Gulf Coast States and brought a couple rounds of severe storms to the local area. The first wave of strong to severe storms approached SE GA midday with strong shear and high low level helicity favoring all severe weather hazards including damaging winds, large hail and tornadoes. This initial band of convection stalled just north of the I-10 corridor and lingered into the afternoon as the first mid level trough lifted NE of the region. This lingering convergent line (outflow boundary) was a focus for continued rounds of severe storms and locally heavy rainfall under strengthening upper level divergence and robust 850 mb winds of 40-50 kts as the parent mid/upper level troughs approached from the west into the evening. The next wave of severe storms developed in the late afternoon and early evening along both the lingering trough/outflow axis across NE FL was well as upstream across south GA as the next strong upper level trough approached, which another round of severe hazards including tornadoes, damaging winds and large hail across SE GA and northeast Florida into the evening. Storms generally weakened a few hours after midnight as stronger dynamics lifted NE of the region, but a few stronger storms during the early morning hours of the 25th produced a brief tornado in Flagler county and hail across our southern tier counties.

The EMA Storm Survey team concluded a brief EF0 tornado touchdown. There was social media video of a funnel cloud with this cell. Around 8:10 am local time, the 5100-5400 block of South John Anderson Highway was impacted by a brief tornado that downed a few small trees, broke a driveway lamp post, shunt metal dock furniture into a canal and blew open mailboxes. Major structural damage was not observed.

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 04:13 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 Jacksonville radar (KJAX), 130 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 11:08 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 2021 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.