EF2 tornado, Forest City to Lake Mary, Florida, March 10, 2025

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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF2

Date

March 10, 2025

Touchdown

9:35 AM EDT (13:35 UTC)

Lifted

9:41 AM EDT (13:41 UTC)

On the ground

6 minutes

Path length

4.0 miles (6.4 km)

Path width

300 yards (274 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$3.9 million

County

Seminole County

Touchdown point

28.711, -81.415

Lift-off point

28.740, -81.365

Record number

2503100735-01

18 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS MLB, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 120 mph.

• Imagery provided by Seminole County Emergency Management and Public Works.

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

Thunderstorms along and ahead of a cold front produced a EF-2 tornado in Seminole County, as well as wind damage in Okeechobee and St Lucie Counties.

The circulation touched down at approximately 9:35 AM EDT near the southeastern edge of Wekiwa Springs State Park where it produced mainly vegetative damage in the form of downed oak and pine trees, with peak winds of 80 to 90 mph. The tornado continued on a northeast trajectory where it crossed a wooded area of the state park and into the Wingfield Reserve subdivision of Longwood. Here, more trees were downed in the vicinity of Alvarado Ct and Wingfield Dr due to winds of 80 to 85 mph.||More substantial damage was noted in the Whispering Winds subdivision where a significant number of oak trees were downed and snapped by EF-1 winds of up to 100 mph. Several residential structures within the subdivision near the intersection of Misty |Morn Pl and Blue Iris Pl experienced significant damage, including numerous blown out windows, damage to garage doors, as well as the loss of part of their roofs and awnings. The tornado likely peaked in this area, where a two-story wood framed home on Blue Iris Pl collapsed due to peak winds estimated up to 120 mph (EF-2 intensity).||The circulation weakened some while moving quickly toward the northeast across Markham Wood Rd and then towards Interstate 4, where mainly tree damage was noted. The tornado impacted a local news station on Skyline Dr before dissipating shortly thereafter at approximately 9:41 AM EDT.

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

1 minute of warning. NWS MLB issued a tornado warning for this county at 13:34 UTC, 1 minute before the tornado touched down, in force until 14:00 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 Marginal Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 12:25 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 Melbourne radar (KMLB), 99 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 13:36 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 2025 tornado in FloridaEvery tornado in Florida since 1950Warnings in force in Florida nowThe forecast where you are

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.