Tornado Classified as EF-1

February 19, 2008

The National Weather Service has preliminarily classified Sunday’s Molino tornado as an EF-1 on the Fujita Scale of tornado intensity. The EF-1 rating is the second lowest on the scale.

County officials said at least 60 homes and businesses were damaged, with at least four homes destroyed when the tornado struck just after noon Sunday.

An EF-1 tornado packs winds of 73-112 miles per hour and is capable of peeling the surface off roofs, pushing mobile homes off their foundations or overturning them, and destroying sheds and a garages. It is considered a “moderate” tornado.

The path of the storm was about 200 yards wide according to the weather service. They have not issued an official length of the storm’s path, but damage was observed over a path two and a half miles long from Highway 29, across Crest Lane, across Highway 95A near Highland Baptist all the way to Molino Road and Brickyard Road.

The last tornado prior to Sunday reported in Molino was October 4, 1995, when a F-0 twister made a brief touchdown at 10:45 in the morning. The only damage reported was to trees and power lines.

Since 1990, there have only been four other F-1 strength tornadoes in Escambia County. The most recent was October 18 of last year when a tornado went through the Warrington and downtown Pensacola areas before dissipating near Cordova Mall.

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Written by William Reynolds · Filed Under News