EF0 tornado, Redington Beach to Oakhurst, Florida, February 14, 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

February 14, 2021

Touchdown

1:07 AM EST (06:07 UTC)

Lifted

1:14 AM EST (06:14 UTC)

On the ground

7 minutes

Path length

1.3 miles (2.1 km)

Path width

30 yards (27 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$20,000

County

Pinellas County

Touchdown point

27.817, -82.804

Lift-off point

27.832, -82.792

Record number

2102140007-01

8 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS TBW, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 75 mph.

• Debris is not from this neighborhood. It fell out of the rotating thunderstorm updraft
• Narrow path of hit or miss a damage in community. Lots of palm fronds and branches 2 inches in diameter littering field in front of complex
• Debris from carport is not from this neighborhood. Lots of insulation littering ground to the north north east of this location
• Couple of Florida rooms destroyed, air conditioner taken off top of building, debris blown down wind

Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.

Short waves moving along a stationary boundary just north of I-4 produced strong winds and a brief tornado.

A round of strong nocturnal thunderstorms rolled in|from the Eastern Gulf of Mexico during the overnight hours of |February 14th. One of these storms took on brief supercell |characteristics with strong rotation evident on radar as it came |into Redington Beach. A NWS meteorologist was unable to find |damage on the barrier island itself, so it was determined a |waterspout formed over Boca Ciega Bay in Pinellas County, moving |generally northeast. The waterspout then came onshore and caused a|very narrow swath of EF-0 damage along Boca Ciega Point Blvd N. |The tornado then tracked north-northeast and caused roof damage to|the Ridgeview apartment complex. The peak intensity of 75 mph was|determined by the roof decking damage here... The tornado then |quickly dissipated.

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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 05:00 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.

Saint Petersburg (PIE), 14 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Tampa radar (KTBW), 41 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 06:04 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.