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EF3 tornado in Lake County, Florida

Tornado February 2, 2007 · Lake County, Florida

EF3

Rating

16.2 mi

Whole path

450 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 450 yards (0.26 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 the tornado that moved out of Sumter County, crossed into Lake County just west of Lady Lake. The one quarter mile wide, F3 tornado moved across the Lady Lake area killing 8 people and injuring 10. The tornado damaged 180 residences and destroyed 101. All of the fatalities were in mobile homes. Moving east northeast at 50 MPH, the tornado lifted near Emrald Marsh Lake.

The wider storm

A series of powerful tornadoes swept across Sumter, Lake and Volusia counties during the early morning hours of February 2, 2007. A discontinuous swath of tornado damage was observed from near Wildwood in Sumter County to the town of Lady Lake (Lake County) to New Smyrna Beach (Volusia County). This was a distance of over 70 miles. A total of 21 fatalities occurred within Lake County. Central Florida was located in the warm sector ahead of an advancing cold front. Large scale lift was supported by a very strong jet aloft, with strong vertical shear. Instability increased overnight with temperatures and dew points increasing through the pre-dawn hours. A single long-tracked supercell thunderstorm traveled from Sumter County to the coastal waters of Volusia County during the early morning hours of February 2, 2007. Three tornadoes touched down along this track.

Began near Lady Lake (28.8942, -81.9494).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

EF3 Lake Mack–Paisley Tornado (2007) 13 dead EF1 Volusia County

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 18948. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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