Tornadoes · United States · Florida · 2023

EF1 tornado, Bermont, Florida, April 30, 2023

This EF1 tornado ran 4.6 miles across Charlotte County on April 30, 2023, touching down at 6:34 AM EDT and reaching 50 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 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.

The record

Rating
EF1
Date
April 30, 2023
Touchdown
6:34 AM EDT (10:34 UTC)
Lifted
6:41 AM EDT (10:41 UTC)
On the ground
7 minutes
Path length
4.6 miles (7.4 km)
Path width
50 yards (46 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$50,000
County
Charlotte County
Touchdown point
26.920, -81.630
Lift-off point
26.960, -81.570
Record number
2304300434-01

The damage survey

2 damage points were recorded along this path by 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.

  • Initial touchdown point of tornado
  • Total destruction of farm building used to store equipment

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 developing early morning squall line ahead of a cold front moving across the Eastern Gulf of Mexico produced an EF-1 tornado in Charlotte County along with few additional 50+ mph sub-severe wind gusts across southwest Florida.

NWS determined that a high end EF-1 tornado with 110 mph winds occurred in eastern Charlotte County, destroying a metal barn and snapping several telephone poles along with overturning a small vehicle trailer and pushing it into a tree.

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

The warnings

0 minutes of warning. NWS TBW issued a tornado warning for this county at 10:34 UTC, 0 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 10:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 09:03 UTC and running to 12:23 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
09:03 UTC12:23 UTCTornado WatchTBW
09:24 UTC10:15 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningTBW
09:31 UTC09:45 UTCTornado WarningTBW
09:44 UTC10:00 UTCTornado WarningTBW
10:15 UTC10:45 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningTBW
10:34 UTC10:45 UTCTornado WarningTBW

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 05:52 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.

Tampa Bay, FL (KTBW), 00:00Z

10.6 hours before the tornado, 116 km from the path. April 30, 2023.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Tampa Bay, FL at 00:00Z on 2023-04-30Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 328 joules per kilogram, CIN -80, lifted condensation level 797 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, Tampa Bay, FL at 00:00Z on 2023-04-30The 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 -41 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 38 knots.19395878Sfc1 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
328 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-80 J/kg
Surface CAPE
683 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
797 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
38 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
22 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-41 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
35 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
-0.0
Supercell composite
-0.3
0-3 km lapse rate
5.7 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Tampa Bay, FL (KTBW), 12:00Z

1.4 hours after it, 116 km from the path. April 30, 2023.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Tampa Bay, FL at 12:00Z on 2023-04-30Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 35 joules per kilogram, CIN -10, lifted condensation level 856 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, Tampa Bay, FL at 12:00Z on 2023-04-30The 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 -102 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 54 knots.1939587897117Sfc1 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
35 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-10 J/kg
Surface CAPE
427 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
856 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
54 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
22 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-102 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
226 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
-0.0
Supercell composite
-0.5
0-3 km lapse rate
5.4 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Tampa radar (KTBW), 116 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 10:33 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
10:38 UTCTORNADO12 E Babcock RanchCharlotte, FLA BARN USED FOR STORAGE COLLAPSED DUE TO A TORNADO THAT MOVED THROUGH THE AREA.
10:40 UTCTSTM WND GST 523 Ssw Cape CoralLee, FLMESONET STATION XTRP TARPON PT.
10:51 UTCTSTM WND GST 561 Nne Page Park-Pine MaLee, FLASOS STATION KFMY FORT MYERS.

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 30, 2023

1 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
April 305:48 PM EDTEF3Virginia Beach tornado, VA4.5350$20 million

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.