Tornadoes · United States · Florida · 2023
EF0 tornado, Aladdin City, Florida, May 25, 2023
This EF0 tornado ran 0.6 miles across Miami-Dade County on May 25, 2023, touching down at 1:20 PM EDT and reaching 75 yards wide. It killed nobody and injured 1, 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.
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
- May 25, 2023
- Touchdown
- 1:20 PM EDT (17:20 UTC)
- Lifted
- 1:22 PM EDT (17:22 UTC)
- On the ground
- 2 minutes
- Path length
- 0.6 miles (1.0 km)
- Path width
- 75 yards (69 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 1
- Property damage
- $50,000
- County
- Miami-Dade County
- Touchdown point
- 25.588, -80.434
- Lift-off point
- 25.581, -80.429
- Record number
- 2305251120-01
The damage survey
8 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS MFL, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 80 mph.
- Spot where 18-wheeler flipped on its side. One injury
- About 500 feet of chain link fence blown down to the south.
- Avocado tree branches broken
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
With the influence of a mid-level trough to the north, South Florida was provided with a source of lift, which combined with surface instability from diurnal heating to develop scattered showers and thunderstorms on the afternoon of May 25th. One of these thunderstorms produced a brief tornado in southwest Miami-Dade County.
A thunderstorm produced a short-lived EF-0 tornado in Redland, starting around|SW 192nd St before traveling south along SW 147th Ave until almost SW 200th St. Several trees were snapped and/or uprooted. A semi tractor trailer was knocked on its side by the tornado near SW 196th St and the driver was injured. Most of the winds along the brief damage path were estimated in the 55-65 mph range, with a peak estimate of 80 mph. Damage amounts are estimated.
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.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 17:46 UTC | 19:45 UTC | Flood Advisory | MFL |
| 17:56 UTC | 18:30 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | MFL |
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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 16:16 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.
Miami, FL (KMFL), 12:00Z
5.3 hours before the tornado, 30 km from the path. May 25, 2023.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 1410 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -10 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 1756 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 747 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 15 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 3 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 11 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 32 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.2 K/km
Miami, FL (KMFL), 00:00Z
6.7 hours after it, 30 km from the path. May 26, 2023.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 1531 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -5 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 2938 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 909 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 13 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 6 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 23 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 44 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 6.8 K/km
The radar
The Miami radar (KAMX), 3 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 17:19 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16:52 UTC | TSTM WND GST 45 | Miami Internationa | Miami-Dade, FL | A WIND GUST OF 45 MPH FROM THE SSW WAS MEASURED AT THE NWS ASOS STATION KMIA AT MIAMI INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT. |
| 17:20 UTC | TORNADO | 2 Nw Goulds | Miami-Dade, FL | *** 1 INJ *** CORRECTS PREVIOUS TORNADO REPORT FROM 2 NW GOULDS. PRELIMINARY NWS STORM SURVEY INFORMATION: A THUNDERSTORM PRODUCED A SHORT-LIVED EF-0 TORNADO STARTING AROUND SW 192ND ST THAT TRAVELED SOUTH ALONG SW 147TH |
| 17:20 UTC | TORNADO | 2 Nw Goulds | Miami-Dade, FL | *** 1 INJ *** PRELIMINARY NWS STORM SURVEY INFORMATION: A THUNDERSTORM PRODUCED A SHORT-LIVED EF-0 TORNADO STARTING AROUND SW 196TH ST THAT TRAVELED SOUTH ALONG SW 147TH AVE UNTIL ALMOST SW 200TH ST. SEVERAL TREES WERE S |
| 17:24 UTC | FUNNEL CLOUD | 3 Nw Goulds | Miami-Dade, FL | REPORTS FROM TRAINED SPOTTERS, SOCIAL MEDIA, AND THE WEATHER OBSERVER AT MIAMI EXECUTIVE AIRPORT OF A FUNNEL CLOUD IN THE REDLAND WEST OF SOUTH MIAMI HEIGHTS. THE FUNNEL WAS CLOSE TO THE GROUND BASED ON PICTURES AND VIDE |
| 17:30 UTC | HAIL 0.25 | 2 Wnw North Miami | Miami-Dade, FL | BROADCAST MEDIA RELAYED A VIDEO OF PEA SIZE HAIL NEAR THE GOLDEN GLADES INTERCHANGE. |
| 17:42 UTC | TSTM WND GST 49 | North Perry Airpor | Broward, FL | A WIND GUST OF 49 MPH FROM THE ESE WAS MEASURED AT THE NWS ASOS STATION KHWO AT NORTH PERRY AIRPORT. |
| 17:44 UTC | TSTM WND GST 56 | 1 N Country Walk | Miami-Dade, FL | A WIND GUST OF 56 MPH FROM THE NE WAS MEASURED AT THE NWS ASOS STATION KTMB AT MIAMI EXECUTIVE AIRPORT. |
| 18:00 UTC | HAIL 0.88 | 1 Wnw Cooper City | Broward, FL | REPORT RECEIVED VIA SOCIAL MEDIA OF NICKEL SIZE HAIL IN COOPER CITY NEAR GRIFFIN AND HIATUS ROADS. |
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
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.