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Tornado Strikes North Miami-Dade
Community
October
29, 2003 - The first squall line of the cool season moved through South
Florida overnight, producing heavy rains totaling almost two inches
in some locations and wind gusts around 30 miles an hour. It also produced
a weak tornado, F0 on the Fujita
Scale, that touched down briefly in three places in extreme north
Miami-Dade County around the intersection of Red Road and Honey Hill
Road, just south of the Florida turnpike.
The National Weather
Service forecast office in Miami conducted a storm survey of the damage
this morning. Damage patterns correlated with radar signatures indicate
that a small weak tornado did skip through several neighborhoods around
245 a.m. EST.
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Double-wide
mobile home with roof missing. |
The
tornado first caused damage to fences and shallow rooted trees
in the vicinity of NW 57th Court and 200th Street around 245
a.m. shortly thereafter a double wide trailer home roof was
blown off and upper branches of trees behind the trailer home
were twisted off near 201st Street and NW 56th Avenue. A couple
of minutes later, a patio roof blown off and a carport was destroyed
near NW 54th Court and 204th Street.
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The
tornado was rated as F0 on the Fujita scale, which means
that the wind gusts associated with the tornado were less
than 73 mph. It occurred with a weather pattern meteorologists
call a bow echo, which is a pattern often associated with 
strong straight line winds in mid latitude weather systems.
Strong wind gusts were measured all across Broward and
Miami-Dade with this system, but were all generally less
than 35 mph. The highest recorded wind gust over land
in south Florida was 33 mph at North Perry Airport in
east Pembroke Pines at 302 a.m. The National Weather Service
office on the FIU campus in west Miami-Dade recorded a
wind gust of 30 mph at 226 a.m.
The National Weather Service issued a special marine warning
at 235 a.m. until 4 a.m. for this squall line as it moved
out into the coastal waters. Fowey Rocks Light recorded
a wind gust to 53 knots (61 mph), shortly before 4 a.m.
as the squall line moved through the south Biscayne Bay
area.
Fortunately, there were no deaths nor injuries associated with
either the tornado or the squall line.
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| The
map below outlines areas where damage occurred. The damage seemed
to be sporadic in nature. Some homes sustained major damage, while
neighboring buildings remained unscathed. In addition, broken
upper branches appeared to have been twisted in all three areas.
The damage pattern suggests a weak tornado as opposed to straight
line wind damage typical of a bow echo. Straight line wind damage
is usually more uniform.
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1. Fences down, minor roof damage. Several large trees uprooted.
Trees appeared to have shallow root systems.
2. Double wide trailer sustained total roof damage. Twisted upper branches
in nearby trees.
3. Damage to carports, patios. Debris found from other areas, probably blown
across the lake.
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National Weather Service Forecast Office
