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EF3 tornado in Sumter County, Florida

Tornado February 2, 2007 · Sumter County, Florida

EF3

Rating

16.2 mi

Whole path

335 yd

Path width

Deaths

Injuries

$114.0M

Damage as recorded

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

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 335 yards (0.19 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF3 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF3 is severe damage: whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, consistent with estimated gusts of 136–165 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

The tornado first touched down near the southeast corner of The Villages south of Lake Miona and moved rapidly to the east northeast at 55 MPH into Lake County. A FEMA report to Sumter County emergency management officials detailed damage to 1,145 homes with 200 destroyed during the 6 minutes the tornado was on the ground. A National Weather Service storm survey estimated maximum winds of 140 MPH. No fatalities were recorded in Sumter County and 15 injuries is a rough estimate.

The wider storm

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.

Began near Royal (28.8815, -82.0457).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

1 more tornado the National Weather Service filed under this storm episode.

EF0 Polk County

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 17515. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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