Tornadoes · United States · Florida · 2022

EF0 tornado, June Park, Florida, September 28, 2022

This EF0 tornado ran 3.0 miles across Brevard County on September 28, 2022, touching down at 3:32 PM EDT and reaching 100 yards wide. It killed nobody.

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
September 28, 2022
Touchdown
3:32 PM EDT (19:32 UTC)
Lifted
3:46 PM EDT (19:46 UTC)
On the ground
14 minutes
Path length
3.0 miles (4.8 km)
Path width
100 yards (91 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Brevard County
Touchdown point
28.083, -80.867
Lift-off point
28.125, -80.884
Record number
2209281332-01

What the Weather Service recorded

After making landfall as a major hurricane in southwest Florida near Cayo Costa, Ian crossed the peninsula and into east central Florida (southern Osceola County) as a Category 1 Hurricane with estimated maximum sustained winds of 75 mph. The system was downgraded to a tropical storm shortly thereafter and emerged into the Atlantic Ocean near Cape Canaveral. Ian's slow movement and large wind field led to a long period of tropical storm force winds across all of east central Florida, as well as hurricane force gusts in squalls and historic rainfall and flooding across parts of the area. Widespread rainfall totals of 4 to 8 inches were reported throughout the area, with a corridor of 10 to 20 inches across Osceola, Orange, Seminole, Volusia, and northern Brevard counties. The maximum observed rainfall total was 21.09 inches in Spruce Creek, Volusia County. The St. Johns River experienced historic rises with record crests set at Astor, Deland, Sanford, and Lake Harney in the days and weeks following Ian's heavy rainfall. A tornado briefly touched down and crossed US-192 in rural Brevard County with no damage to structures reported. Persistent onshore flow before and during the storm led to water level rises (storm surge) of 1-3 feet along the east central Florida, bringing moderate to severe beach erosion, with the most significant effects noted in Volusia County. Collectively, the effects of Hurricane Ian led to 15 storm-related fatalities (6 direct and 9 indirect) and between $800-900M in property damage across east central Florida.

A trained spotter and storm chaser sent video of a short-duration tornado that touched down to the south of US-192 near Deer Park. The tornado lifted once it crossed and moved north of the highway before it touched down briefly a second time to the east of Deer Park Rd. No structures were present in the area of the touchdown and only minimal damage occurred to trees and vegetation. The tornado was embedded within an outer rainband ahead of Hurricane Ian.

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

The warnings

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 08:59 UTC and running to 20:31 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
08:59 UTC20:31 UTCTornado WatchMLB
12:48 UTC14:45 UTCFlood WarningMLB
15:30 UTC09:41 UTCHurricane WarningMLB
16:50 UTC20:00 UTCFlood WarningMLB
18:00 UTC18:30 UTCTornado WarningMLB
18:32 UTC18:48 UTCTornado WarningMLB
20:22 UTC00:15 UTCFlood WarningMLB
20:31 UTC04:57 UTCTornado WatchMLB
23:59 UTC03:45 UTCFlood WarningMLB
03:41 UTC09:30 UTCFlood WarningMLB
04:58 UTC10:00 UTCFlash Flood WarningMLB

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 Enhanced Risk, with a 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 16:24 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 air that afternoon

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.

Cape Canaveral, FL (KXMR), 12:00Z

7.5 hours before the tornado, 55 km from the path. September 28, 2022.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Cape Canaveral, FL at 12:00Z on 2022-09-28Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 21 joules per kilogram, CIN -112, lifted condensation level 850 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Cape Canaveral, FL at 12:00Z on 2022-09-28The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 33 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 48 knots.193958Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
21 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-112 J/kg
Surface CAPE
137 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
850 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
48 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
24 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
33 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
149 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.2
0-3 km lapse rate
4.6 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Melbourne radar (KMLB), 22 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 19:34 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
19:29 UTCTORNADO5 W Camp Holly Fish CamBrevard, FLMULTIPLE SOCIAL MEDIA VIDEOS SHOWED A BRIEF TORNADO SUPPORTED BY RADAR IMAGERY CROSSING HWY 192 JUST EAST OF THE BREVARD/OSCEOLA COUNTY LINE BETWEEN SAPLING LANE AND BUMPY RD. REPORTS SAY IT WAS MOVING WNW AND LASTED LES
19:29 UTCTORNADO5 W Camp Holly Fish CamBrevard, FLSOCIAL MEDIA VIDEO SHOWED A BRIEF TORNADO SUPPORTED BY RADAR IMAGERY CROSSING HWY 192 JUST EAST OF THE BREVARD/OSCEOLA COUNTY LINE. TIME ESTIMATED BY RADAR.
20:25 UTCTROPICAL STORMOrlando Intl AirportOrange, FLTHE ASOS AT KMCO (ORLANDO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT) MEASURED A WIND GUST OF 45KT/52MPH.
22:05 UTCTROPICAL STORMOrlando Intl AirportOrange, FLTHE ASOS SITE AT KMCO (ORLANDO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT) MEASURED A WIND GUST OF 49KT/56MPH FROM THE NE.

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 September 28, 2022

2 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
September 282:25 AM EDTEF0Glades, FL1.175$50,000
September 285:56 AM EDTEF0Palm Beach, FL0.250$2,000

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.