EF0 tornado in Polk County, Florida

A man watched a tornado move through his yard on the edge of town then into an orange grove. The visible funnel did not extend all the way to the ground. The tornado stripped shingles from his roof, blew over two sheds, and damaged large tree limbs. The tornado blew down 4 rows of citrus trees as it moved into the field then lifted back into the sky.

A developing area of low pressure over the western Gulf of Mexico on Thursday, February 1 intensified and moved off the mid Atlantic coast Friday. Numerous thunderstorms developed out ahead of and along the associated cold front that pushed into southern Florida late Friday. The first tornado of the year to use the Enhanced Fujita Scale occurred just after 3 AM Friday in The Villages in northeast Sumter County. Several violent tornadoes were reported across central Florida early Friday morning. This violent tornado outbreak was the largest in Florida since the Kissimmee tornadoes of February 22-23, 1998.

In addition to the tornadoes, gusty southwest winds ahead of the cold front combined with high tide to cause areas of minor coastal flooding along west and southwest facing shorelines north of Tampa Bay.