EF1 tornado, Dunnellon to Silver Spgs, Florida, March 12, 2022

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

March 12, 2022

Touchdown

7:45 AM EST (12:45 UTC)

Lifted

8:20 AM EST (13:20 UTC)

On the ground

35 minutes

Path length

26.6 miles (42.9 km)

Path width

65 yards (59 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Marion County

Touchdown point

29.050, -82.461

Lift-off point

29.182, -82.046

Record number

2203120645-01

31 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS JAX and NWS TBW, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 110 mph.

• The tree is along the Lakeshore were still standing with only damage to branches
• Craig multiple trees uprooted
• I have a numerous trees and powerlines down in this area
• Shingles off home to left. Carport damaged. Trailer moved.

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

Strong to severe storms moved across the local area during the early morning hours ahead of a potent cold front. Severe storms with wind gusts of 50-60 mph and tornadoes moved inland from the Gulf of Mexico and tracked south of the I-10 corridor across NE Florida. Two EF1 tornadoes occurred, one in Marion county then another Putnam county between 8 am and 915 am. Strong pressure rises trailed the front during the late morning which caused high non-thunderstorm wind gusts of 40-55 mph into the afternoon.

A line of strong to severe thunderstorms moved east across Marion county early Saturday morning, March 12th. A tornado touched down in Dunnellon where a large billboard was knocked over and siding was peeled off of a small professional building. Trees were damaged, snapped and uprooted. The next concentration of damage was reported on the south and east sides of Ocala where many trees were blown down and/or uprooted. Powerlines were blown down and numerous residences and an apartment building had damage. Damage in Ocala concentrated near SW 44th Court where some structural damage occurred and tree and powerline damage occurred. Another damaged local was near SW 41st Street near the Paddock Park Apartments where extensive roof damage occurred due to a large tree falling on the building. The county had to open an emergency shelter to house about 6 people displaced from the tornado. The peak winds of the tornado were estimated near 110 mph.

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.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 08:40 UTC and running to 14:12 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 05:38 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 Tampa radar (KTBW), 158 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 12:44 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 2022 tornado in FloridaEvery tornado in Florida since 1950Warnings in force in Florida nowThe forecast where you are

4 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.