Two tornadoes confirmed in wild, stormy day in South Florida; today should be calmer
It rained, it thundered, it hailed and two tornadoes swept through Broward all in the span of an hour on Tuesday afternoon.
Though more storms are likely today, they are not expected to be anywhere as severe.
A tree toppled into a Fort Lauderdale house, thousands lost power and hundreds of flights were delayed but there was a cherry on top — a rainbow stretched north to south over the 17th Street Causeway in Fort Lauderdale once the storminess died down and no injuries were reported.
The turbulent conditions began shortly after 3:30 p.m. when numerous weather spotters confirmed seeing a funnel cloud over downtown Fort Lauderdale.
The National Weather Service in Miami has confirmed that one tornado touched down from 3:34 p.m. to 3:58 p.m. in downtown Fort Lauderdale and stretched for nearly 3 ½ miles, had a width of 60 yards and estimated peak wind of 65 mph, making it an EF-O tornado.
The second tornado, also rated at EF-0, touched down slightly northwest of Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport from 4:25 p.m. to 4:36 p.m. and stretched for just over 3 miles at a width of 40 yards, the weather service said. Its estimated peak wind was 84 mph.
The airport tornado caused 225 flight delays, 18 cancellations and a 2-½ hour closure of the north runway while crews removed debris, said Greg Meyer, the airport’s spokesman. A baggage cart caused minor damage when it blew into a general aviation aircraft on the north side of the airport, he said.
Jason Holloway caught sight of the apparent tornado over Fort Lauderdale from a 42nd-floor balcony. He used his cellphone to record seven seconds of it before darting to safety.
“I was surprised it looked as big as it did,” said Holloway, 43, a pilot and boat captain who moved from Dallas last year. “It looked like it was the real deal.”
Holloway, who lives in a condo at the Icon building, watched the weather conditions worsen. When he spotted the funnel cloud and then the sky turn “kind of greenish,” he tapped record on his phone.
The weather whipped up a deluge of emergencies for Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue. From 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., firefighters responded to 38 calls, well above the hourly average of six to 10, said Battalion Chief Greg May.
The calls ranged from live wires down and utility fires, to flooded streets and a pedestrian getting hit by a car, he said. No other injuries were reported, he said.
“That was a pretty bad storm,” May said. “We weren’t expecting that, it just came out of nowhere.”
The worst of it, May said, was a tree that toppled onto a house at 422 NW 7th Terrace. The Red Cross was on hand to provide assistance to the residents.
The Coral Springs-Parkland Fire Department tweeted a picture of gazebo with a burned thatched roof about 4 p.m.
“The lightning was no joke today!” the tweet said. “Lightning is believed to have started this fire of a gazebo in eastern Parkland this afternoon. Thankfully no one was hurt during the storm or the subsequent fire. Always stay indoors during a storm!”
Amid the strong weather, the National Weather Service issued a tornado warning and later a severe thunderstorm warning for parts of Broward County. The last warning expired at 5 p.m. as the storm moved out of the area.
Residents in Davie and Plantation reported hail.
About 9,000 Broward County homes were without power Tuesday evening, said Lauren Hills, a spokeswoman for Florida Power & Light. Before dawn Wednesday, 248 customers remained without power, according to the utility.
The severe conditions were caused by a pre-frontal boundary pushing through the area and mixing with a sea breeze pushing in from the east, said Barry Baxter, a weather service meteorologist.
“It’s like a wind-shift line. Thunderstorms usually form around that boundary,” he said. “So when the thunderstorms hit that sea breeze, it helped enhance the thunderstorms a little.”
Staff writer Juan Ortega contributed to this report.
tealanez@sun-sentinel.com, 954-356-4542 or Twitter @talanez
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