Tornadoes · United States · Florida · 2023
EF0 tornado, Havana to Concord, Florida, April 27, 2023
From Havana to Concord, this EF0 tornado ran 1.5 miles across Gadsden County on April 27, 2023, touching down at 6:14 PM EDT and reaching 75 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.
EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mph
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
EF4166 to 200 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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
- April 27, 2023
- Touchdown
- 6:14 PM EDT (22:14 UTC)
- Lifted
- 6:18 PM EDT (22:18 UTC)
- On the ground
- 4 minutes
- Path length
- 1.5 miles (2.4 km)
- Path width
- 75 yards (69 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Gadsden County
- Touchdown point
- 30.625, -84.392
- Lift-off point
- 30.628, -84.367
- Record number
- 2304271614-01
The damage survey
60 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 93 mph.
- Tree strikes from across bull headly
- Tree blocking Golden Eagle Drive East. Cleaned up by survey time, thus no picture.
- Several trees snapped, some uprooted with one blocking Deer Lake East.
- Trees uprooted/snapped. One on a car, causing 1 injury.
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
A strong spring storm system moved through the area with ample instability and shear for severe weather. Numerous reports of severe weather were received across the tri-state area. Two tornadoes occurred across southwest Georgia, and seven tornadoes occurred across the eastern Florida panhandle and big bend. An EF2 tornado produced significant damage in the town of Hosford, FL.
A brief tornado touchdown occurred in Gadsden County along County Road 12A. Numerous pine trees were snapped and uprooted near the intersection of CR-12A and Leslie Lewis Road. A few other trees were uprooted before the tornado dissipated just west of Concord Road. This tornado was rated EF0 with max winds estimated at 80 mph.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
29 minutes of warning. NWS TAE issued a tornado warning for this county at 21:45 UTC, 29 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 22:30 UTC.
The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 15:37 UTC and running to 23:08 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 15:37 UTC | 23:08 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Watch | TAE |
| 19:38 UTC | 20:45 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | TAE |
| 19:49 UTC | 20:15 UTC | Tornado Warning | TAE |
| 20:10 UTC | 20:25 UTC | Tornado Warning | TAE |
| 20:51 UTC | 22:00 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | TAE |
| 21:45 UTC | 22:30 UTC | Tornado Warning | TAE |
| 21:47 UTC | 23:00 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | TAE |
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 20:10 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.
Tallahassee Rgnl, FL (KTLH), 12:00Z
10.2 hours before the tornado, 26 km from the path. April 27, 2023.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 485 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -75 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 38 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 706 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 40 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 6 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 25 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 77 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.8
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.8 K/km
The radar
The Tallahassee radar (KTLH), 26 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:16 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) | Report | Where | County | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19:52 UTC | TORNADO | 2 Nnw Telogia | Liberty, FL | DAMAGE IN THE HOSFORD AREA WITH A CONFIRMED TDS ON RADAR. |
| 21:23 UTC | TORNADO | 7 Nne Jewel Fire Tower | Wakulla, FL | BRIEF TDS ON RADAR. |
| 21:45 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Crawfordville | Wakulla, FL | 911 DISPATCH REPORTS NUMEROUS TREES DOWN ACROSS THE ENTIRE COUNTY DUE TO SEVERE STORMS MOVING THROUGH. |
| 22:00 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 1 W Wakulla | Wakulla, FL | FALLEN TREES AND LIMBS RESULTED IN A POWER OUTAGE. |
| 22:07 UTC | TSTM WND GST 65 | 2 S Shady Rest | Gadsden, FL | SPOTTER REPORTS 60 TO 70 MPH WIND GUSTS. POWER OUTAGES. |
| 22:15 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 2 S Lake Jackson | Leon, FL | TREE DOWN ON HOME IN THE 2900 BLOCK OF STOKLEY LANE. |
| 22:15 UTC | TORNADO | 2 Ene Havana | Gadsden, FL | CONFIRMED TDS ON RADAR. |
| 22:18 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Havana | Gadsden, FL | REPORT OF DOWNED TREES IN HAVANNA. |
| 22:20 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 2 Nnw Mission San Luis | Leon, FL | TREES DOWN ON TRIMBLE ROAD. |
| 22:20 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 2 N Tallahassee Comm Co | Leon, FL | TREE DOWN OVER THE ROAD AT OCALA AND THARPE. |
| 22:25 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 3 Ese Orchard Pond | Leon, FL | TREES DOWN MERIDIAN AND ORCHARD POND. |
| 22:30 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 1 Wnw Killearn Lakes | Leon, FL | TREE DOWN ACROSS ROADWAY BANNERMAN AND TEQUESTA. |
| 22:30 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Bradfordville | Leon, FL | TREE DOWN OVER ROADWAY. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2023 tornado in FloridaEvery tornado in Florida since 1950Warnings in force in Florida nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of April 27, 2023
8 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| April 27 | 2:14 PM CDT | EF0 | Calhoun, FL | 0.5 | 50 | |||
| April 27 | 3:54 PM EDT | EF2 | Liberty, FL | 2.5 | 960 | $500,000 | ||
| April 27 | 3:04 PM CDT | EF1 | Bay, FL | 0.8 | 75 | $200,000 | ||
| April 27 | 3:33 PM CDT | EF0 | Calhoun, FL | 0.9 | 50 | |||
| April 27 | 5:21 PM EDT | EF0 | Wakulla, FL | 2.3 | 50 | |||
| April 27 | 6:11 PM EDT | EF1 | Thomas, GA | 1.2 | 160 | |||
| April 27 | 6:20 PM EDT | EF1 | Thomas, GA | 2.3 | 75 | $5,000 | ||
| April 27 | 6:42 PM EDT | EF1 | Madison, FL | 0.6 | 100 |
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.