EF0 tornado, Belleair Bluffs, Florida, October 12, 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 12, 2023

Touchdown

11:34 AM EDT (15:34 UTC)

Lifted

11:35 AM EDT (15:35 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.4 miles (0.7 km)

Path width

15 yards (14 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$5,000

County

Pinellas County

Touchdown point

27.916, -82.830

Lift-off point

27.916, -82.823

Record number

2310120934-01

13 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 very brief tornado was observed over the intracoastal waterway along the Belleair Beach causeway at 11:34 AM EST (1534Z). At 11:35 AM EST (1535Z), the tornado moved onshore and damaged the roof of an apartment building before dissipating.

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.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 12:52 UTC and running to 19:00 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 12:50 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.

The Tampa radar (KTBW), 48 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 15:34 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

10 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.