EF1 tornado, Gritney, Florida, December 10, 2023

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

December 10, 2023

Touchdown

5:30 AM CST (11:30 UTC)

Lifted

5:37 AM CST (11:37 UTC)

On the ground

7 minutes

Path length

3.0 miles (4.8 km)

Path width

250 yards (229 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Holmes County

Touchdown point

30.805, -85.833

Lift-off point

30.829, -85.791

Record number

2312100530-01

11 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS TAE, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 95 mph.

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

A cool season severe weather setup of low instability and high wind shear brought a few reports of severe weather to portions of the tri-state region. A couple of tornadoes occurred in Holmes county, FL, and Henry county, AL.

A tornado touched down just east of the Chattahoochee River in southern Holmes County and headed northeast. Damage along the path consisted of snapped and uprooted trees. No structural damage was found. The largest concentration of damage occurred on CR 179 along and east of Boat Ramp Road. Several pines were snapped on either side of the highway and there were a couple of uprooted hardwood trees as well. The tornado then crossed a remote unpopulated area along Wright's Creek before damaging some trees on Bonifay Gritney Road between Dyson Circle and Faircloth Drive. No additional damage was found east of that location. Damage was consistent with an EF-1 tornado with maximum winds of 90-95 mph.

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

1 minute of warning. NWS TAE issued a tornado warning for this county at 11:29 UTC, 1 minute before the tornado touched down, in force until 12:02 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 06:59 UTC and running to 13:56 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 Marginal Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 05:59 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 Eglin Afb radar (KEVX), 30 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 11:30 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 2023 tornado in FloridaEvery tornado in Florida since 1950Warnings in force in Florida nowThe forecast where you are

5 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.