EF0 tornado, Columbia, Florida, July 7, 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

July 7, 2021

Touchdown

6:47 AM EDT (10:47 UTC)

Lifted

6:48 AM EDT (10:48 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.0 miles (0.0 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Columbia County

Touchdown point

30.057, -82.706

Lift-off point

30.057, -82.706

Record number

2107070447-01

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

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

Tropical Storm Elsa tracked NNE across the western tier of the local forecast area through the day on Wed, July 7th. The storm made landfall along the FL Big Bend coast. The main impacts from TS Elsa for the local area included 3 confirmed tornadoes, downed trees due to gusty winds, and heavy rainfall which caused river flooding. There was one loss of life due to a tree falling onto a car. Peak rainfall amount was near 7.2 inches in Alachua county and the peak recorded wind gust in a squall was 58 mph in Jekyll Island GA.

A brief EF0 tornado touchdown occurred in an outer band of Tropical Storm Elsa during the early morning hours, and impacted the property at 369 Raven Road, south of Lake City, in Columbia county. Emergency Management conducted a storm survey and observed soft and hard wood trees snapped and broken. A back porch with a metal roof was lifted and peeled back and adjoining plywood walls collapsed. Debris was strewn across the property. Maximum peak winds were estimated at 75 mph.

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

7 minutes of warning. NWS JAX issued a tornado warning for this county at 10:40 UTC, 7 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 11:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 10:46 UTC and running to 17:00 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 05:44 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.

Lake City (LCQ), 19 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Moody AFB radar (KVAX), 97 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 10:48 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

6 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.