Unrated tornado, Davie to Oakland Park, Florida, February 18, 2024

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 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. Unratedthis tornado

   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

Unrated

Date

February 18, 2024

Touchdown

3:55 PM EST (20:55 UTC)

Lifted

3:56 PM EST (20:56 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.2 miles (0.3 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$40,000

County

Broward County

Touchdown point

26.171, -80.143

Lift-off point

26.170, -80.140

Record number

2402181455-01

17 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 85 mph.

• Damaged fence along Taft Street
• Assorted vegetation damage near Tree Tops Park
• Large branches and damaged fencing downed
• Another shallow rooted uproot

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

A low-topped supercell embedded within a line of showers moved across a portion of Broward and Miami-Dade Counties on the afternoon of February 18th, 2024 in association with a cold front moving through the area. During several different cycles in the lifetime of this low-topped supercell, tornadic activity was reported. Due to the cyclic nature of this low-topped supercell, these tornadoes' paths were discontinuous.

A tornado was observed in portions of Cooper City, Davie, and Plantation as showers passed in the mid-afternoon. Damage was mainly to vegetation, including hardwood trees, which impacted some structures. There were public reports of tree damage and metal siding debris at the Bamford Sports Complex in Davie. The tornado was rated as an EF-0 with estimated an maximum winds near 80 mph. The tornado had a non-continuous damage path length of 3.4 miles with a maximum 350 yards. Damage amount is estimated.

The broadcast media and public described, via social media posts and pictures, a tornado occurred within a residential neighborhood in the city of Oakland Park. There were pictures of flipped cars and damaged trees. Time, path length, and path width are estimated based on radar and satellite imagery. Due to an inability to survey the area, maximum wind speeds and EF rating are unknown. Damage amount is estimated.

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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:58 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.

Fort Lauderdale (FXE), 4 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

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 2024 tornado in FloridaEvery tornado in Florida since 1950Warnings in force in Florida nowThe forecast where you are

4 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.