Here’s why Florida doesn’t typically see long-tracked tornadoes

ORLANDO, Fla – Devastating news and pictures continue to come out of Alabama after tornadoes tore through several communities Thursday afternoon.

One storm in particular, in and around Selma, was on the ground for an extremely long time.

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The parent supercell thunderstorm first became severe northwest of Hattiesburg, MS just after 9 a.m. ET. The storm produced a tornado warning on the Mississippi side of the border as it was organizing. Wind damage was reported over the path of the cell, but no tornado was reported.

That changed once the storm entered Alabama. A tornado touched down just to the west of Selma.

The parent supercell thunderstorm likely cycled, producing multiple tornadoes from about Selma all the way to Barnesville, Georgia — nearly 200 miles.

In the Deep South, there is the perfect combination of wind shear, turning of the winds with height and instability due to the proximity to the more-often-than-not-warm Gulf of Mexico. This is why the Deep South, and Tornado Alley in the Plains for that matter, typically see the strongest and longest-lived tornadoes.

The Gulf is currently running much above normal for this time of the year. The unseasonably warm, moist air fueled by the Gulf of Mexico, met up with a strong jet stream to create an environment favorable to tornadic activity.

In this case, the parent supercell thunderstorm was also all by itself, out ahead of a strong line of thunderstorms. So it had the juiced environment all to itself allowing it to thrive for hours.

A tornado emergency was in effect at this time, a step up from the typical tornado warning. Tornado emergencies are issued when a large, violent tornado is approaching a population center.

This tornado was likely part of a tornado family, several tornadoes spawned by the same parent supercell thunderstorm.

Florida is no stranger to tornadoes, but they are typically shorter-lived than the ones in Tornado Alley or Deep South.

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Florida certainly has the moisture part of the equation down pat, but oftentimes, the wind shear component is thankfully missing. During the summer, brief tornadoes are possible as the sea breezes collide, but there isn’t enough wind energy in the atmosphere for those tornadoes to be sustained.

The Sunshine State also sees tornadoes during tropical events. Wind shear increases when the system is making landfall. While they can certainly be damaging, tropical tornadoes are typically short-lived.

Florida’s biggest tornadoes would come from the introduction of fronts that include the jetstream, introducing wind shear, digging well into the Deep South. This was the case in 1998 during the significant Central Florida tornadoes.

One of Florida’s longest-tracked tornadoes occurred in 1966. It traveled nearly 140 miles starting around St. Petersburg and ending near Cocoa Beach. It produced F2 damage.

That same setup produced a family of long-lived tornadoes, three separate long-track tornadoes from the same parent thunderstorm. tornadoes The storm traveled 135 miles starting just south of Clearwater, Pinellas County to just north of Merritt Island, Brevard County.

It produced F-4 damage.

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