EF0 tornado, Bridgeport to Oldsmar, Florida, October 11, 2023

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.

Rating

EF0

Date

October 11, 2023

Touchdown

12:13 AM EDT (04:13 UTC)

Lifted

12:15 AM EDT (04:15 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

0.3 miles (0.4 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$50,000

County

Pinellas County

Touchdown point

28.032, -82.672

Lift-off point

28.035, -82.671

Record number

2310112213-01

15 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS TBW, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 115 mph.

• Complete uplift of the roof. Awning damage. Awning damage to the two units to the south as well.
• Partial uplift of the back side of the unit. Porch area destroyed. Awnings blown off.
• Parking lot lights with cement poles damaged and one knocked completely down. Glass doors and windows broken. Box truck knocked over on its side into a car. Partial roof damage on one portion of a store with water leaking through and storefront out of square with building.
• End of condo building tore off roof, and part of the side wall. Debris flung 500 yards.

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

A severe weather episode with an area of low pressure and associated cold front moving east across the Gulf of Mexico approaching the peninsula produced multiple supercell thunderstorms and likely waterspouts over the open waters before approaching the west Florida coast, where one waterspout was observed and multiple strong wind gusts were reported.

A developing supercell moved ashore near Madeira Beach in southern Pinellas County around 10:30 PM EST (0330Z) and continued north-northeast across the communities of Seminole and Highpoint over the next 30 minutes, passing just west of St Pete Clearwater Int'l Airport (PIE). Radar indicated increasing organization and rotation around midnight as it passed over the Courtney Campbell Causeway while approaching Safety Harbor, and organization continued to increase over the next 15 minutes before the storm produced an EF-0 tornado while crossing the northern shore of Safety Harbor into Oldsmar around 11:15 PM EST (0415Z), where a significant part of the roof was removed from a two-story home along Shore Drive facing south toward the shoreline located across the street. Video recorded by a local resident from just east of the tornado track showed power flashes as the storm moved across the area, consistent with the time of the most apparent rotation per radar, while the aforementioned house receiving roof damage was located along the eastern edge of the circulation as the storm moved north-northeast. Intermittent damage continued along the track north-northeast over the next quarter-mile or so before the circulation weakened, including roof damage reported to a few additional homes, and damage to large trees continuing northward to around Oldsmar Elementary school near SR 580/State St.

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

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.

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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:44 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 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.

Clearwater Air Park (CLW), 11 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The Tampa radar (KTBW), 45 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 04:10 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

3 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.