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EF0 tornado in Polk County, Florida

Tornado April 11, 2021 · Polk County, Florida

EF0

Rating

1.4 mi

Path length

50 yd

Path width

$15K

Damage as recorded

$2K

Crop damage

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

Roof damage from wind and downed trees reported to multiple homes near Spirit Lake and Eagle Lake. Time estimated by radar velocity signature.

The wider storm

Shortwave disturbance over Mid-South/Tennessee Valley region and attendant surface low with cold front extending south into the Gulf of Mexico produced a mesoscale convective system (MCS) ahead of the front that moved across the eastern gulf into West-Central and Southwest Florida, spawning a tornado and multiple, separate wind damage reports along with hail. One indirect fatality resulted when a motorist exited a vehicle due to a downed tree and inadvertently contacted a live power line.

Began near Jan Phyl Vlg (27.9990, -81.7849).

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 943561. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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