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EF0 tornado in Bay County, Florida

Tornado January 9, 2024 · Bay County, Florida

EF0
Rating
5.4 mi
Whole path
50 yd
Path width
$15.4M
Damage as recorded

NOAA records this tornado county by county. Its path ran through Bay County → Bay County; the totals above are for the whole tornado.

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 50 yards (0.03 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF0 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF0 is light damage: shingles and siding peeled, gutters torn, branches broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 65–85 mph. The rating comes from a survey of the worst damage after the storm, not from a wind measurement, so it says as much about what the tornado hit as about how strong it was.

What the National Weather Service wrote

A satellite vortex tornado of parent EF3 tornado just to the west made landfall at the western edge of St. Andrews State Park. Only very minor damage to a few tree limbs and an antenna were reported by park management. The tornado was confirmed via videos

on social media. Damage was consistent with an EF0 tornado with max winds estimated at 70 mph.

The wider storm

A high impact severe weather event impacted the tri-state region on January 9th with supercells producing tornadoes, large hail, and damaging wind gusts, followed by a major squall line with widespread wind damage and additional tornadoes. Preceding this activity, very strong non-thunderstorm wind gusts of 40-60 mph occurred, with even a gust to 70 mph at the Albany airport. There were 14 tornadoes confirmed across the tri-state region, including 3 EF0s, 5 EF1s, 5 EF2s, and 1 EF3. This activity was driven by a deepening area of low pressure west of the region with a record strong low level jet crossing the region. The winds at 850 mb were in in the 65-80 knot range, and sufficient instability existed to support mixing some of these very strong environmental winds to the surface.

Two significant tornadoes touched down in Bay county, including 1 EF3 and 1 EF2. These two tornadoes in Bay county resulted in damage to 326 buildings for a total market value loss of $20,350,311. There were 234 single family homes damaged, 46 mobile homes damaged, 22 condos damaged, 2 multi-family homes damaged, and 22 commercial buildings damaged. Of these 326 buildings, 113 sustained 5% damage, 86 sustained 15% damage, 2 sustained 20% damage, 29 sustained 30% damage, 17 sustained 35% damage, 28 sustained 45% damage, and 51 sustained 100% damage.

Began near Biltmore Beach (30.1322, -85.7452).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

11 more tornadoes the National Weather Service filed under this storm episode.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 1150255. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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