Tornadoes · United States · Florida · 2022

EF0 tornado, De Funiak Springs Arpt, Florida, January 2, 2022

This EF0 tornado ran 0.1 miles across Walton County on January 2, 2022, touching down at 1:02 PM CST and reaching 85 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $50,000 of property damage.

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.

  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.

The record

Rating
EF0
Date
January 2, 2022
Touchdown
1:02 PM CST (19:02 UTC)
Lifted
1:03 PM CST (19:03 UTC)
On the ground
1 minutes
Path length
0.1 miles (0.2 km)
Path width
85 yards (78 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$50,000
County
Walton County
Touchdown point
30.739, -86.160
Lift-off point
30.740, -86.159
Record number
2201021302-01

The damage survey

7 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS TAE, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 81 mph.

  • Structure slid and rolled. Completely unsecured.

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

Numerous showers and thunderstorms ahead of a cold front brought severe weather to the tri-state area. Several reports of trees and power lines blown down were received from across the region along with one tornado in Walton county, FL.

A tornado briefly touched down just north of the De Funiak Springs Municipal Airport near the intersection of Dr Roberts Drive and Bellini Road. The tornado uprooted a few trees and caused damage to several outbuildings and two mobile homes. The maximum wind is estimated at 80 mph, making this an EF-0 tornado.

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

The warnings

6 minutes of warning. NWS TAE issued a tornado warning for this county at 18:56 UTC, 6 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 19:16 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
18:56 UTC19:16 UTCTornado WarningTAE
19:18 UTC23:04 UTCTornado WatchTAE
19:35 UTC20:30 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningTAE
03:02 UTC15:00 UTCWind AdvisoryTAE

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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 16:31 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 radar

The Eglin Afb radar (KEVX), 30 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 19:04 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.

What was reported nearby

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

Time (UTC)ReportWhereCountyRemark
18:31 UTCTSTM WND GST 53Crestview AirportOkaloosa, FLASOS STATION KCEW CRESTVIEW MEASURES 53MPH THUNDERSTORM WIND GUST.
19:03 UTCTORNADO1 Nw De Funiak Spring AWalton, FLDOWNED TREES AND AN OVERTURNED CAMPER.
19:12 UTCMARINE TSTM WIND 42Miramar BeachWalton, FL
19:40 UTCTSTM WND DMG4 Sw Hickory HillHolmes, FLPOWERLINE DOWN ON NORTH HIGHWAY 81.
20:40 UTCNON-TSTM WND GST 562 Ssw Eglin AfbOkaloosa, FLCORRECTS PREVIOUS NON-TSTM WND GST REPORT FROM 2 SSW EGLIN AFB. TEMPEST WEATHER STATION MEASURES 49KT WIND GUST AT LORRAINE NORTH SHORE AT 2:40 PM CST.
21:12 UTCNON-TSTM WND GST 562 Ssw Eglin AfbOkaloosa, FLTEMPEST WEATHER STATION MEASURES 49KT WIND GUST AT LORRAINE NORTH SHORE AT 2:40 PM CST.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2022 tornado in FloridaEvery tornado in Florida since 1950Warnings in force in Florida nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of January 2, 2022

2 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
January 25:27 PM ESTEF0Wilcox, GA0.5100
January 27:00 PM ESTEF0Toombs, GA0.4100

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.