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EF0 tornado in Lee County, Florida

Tornado May 17, 2026 · Lee County, Florida

EF0
Rating
0.5 mi
Path length
50 yd
Path width
$200K
Damage as recorded
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 landspout tornado formed over Cape Coral just north of the Sovereign Canal near SW 28th St around 3:35 PM EDT in association with a separate segment of the cluster of thunderstorms, with evidence of the circulation visible in video taken by residents along SW 4th Ave and SW 5th Ave. Footage from SW 4th Ave showed a pickup truck in the driveway of a home being displaced a number of feet as the circulation passed by the location, and footage from the SW 5th Ave location showed the funnel of the landspout and the surface circulation behind a home over the Niagara Canal. Additional footage of the circulation was taken approximately one-quarter mile to the northwest near the Seabell Canal, where footage from a home on the southern edge of the canal along SW 26th Ter showed the circulation blowing lawn chairs around and lofting additional unidentified debris, while also knocking over and blowing around vinyl fencing in the backyard of a home on the opposite/northern side of the canal along SW 26th St. A few additional reports and photos from the vicinity also indicated fence and some roof damage as the circulation neared the intersection of Skyline Blvd and Veterans Pkwy before it is estimated to have dissipated around 3:38 PM EDT, as no other reports, pictures or videos have been confirmed to indicate that the track extended further. Maximum estimated winds of 75 mph.

The wider storm

A cluster of thunderstorms developing and propagating northward across southwest Florida and Lee County produced three EF-0 landspout tornadoes during the afternoon that affected parts of Fort Myers and Cape Coral in Lee County.

Began near Cape Coral (26.6003, -81.9826).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 1338395. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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