‘Really Weak’ Tornado Briefly Touched Down Near I-75 Tuesday: NWS

SARASOTA, FL — A “really weak, really brief” tornado touched down near the border of Sarasota and Manatee counties Tuesday afternoon, Austen Flannery, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Tampa Bay office in Ruskin, told Patch.

It was the third tornado produced by a strong storm system that moved through the Tampa Bay area Tuesday. The others touched down in Palm Harbor and New Port Richey.

In addition to the tornadoes, there were numerous reports of hail from Crystal River to Port Charlotte, the NWS Tampa Bay shared on its Facebook page. There were also several wind gusts more than 40 mph and a 60-mph wind gust reported at the Sunshine Skyway Bridge.

• Related: Trees Downed As 2 'Weak' Tornadoes Touch Down In 2 FL Counties

Some parts of Sarasota and Manatee counties saw more than 3 inches of rain and strong winds snapped four utility poles off U.S. 41 near Pic Town Estates in Bradenton, causing many in the area to lose power, ABC 7 reported. The winds also tore the roof off one manufactured home, which was unoccupied, at the mobile home park.

The Sarasota-area tornado touched down Tuesday evening just east of I-75 near Lakewood Ranch Boulevard, Flannery said.

Bob Harrigan with ABC 7 shared a video of the tornado touching down.

There was no damage from the tornado, as it touched down in a field, Flannery said. “From the video that we saw, it’s kind of almost spinning in a field, maybe that’s not the right word, but in a space where there are not a lot of homes and wasn’t really doing a lot of damage.”

Though the tornado hasn’t been assigned a damage intensity rating, yet, he said it will likely be classified as an EF-0.

A tornado's damage intensity is often rated on the Enhanced Fujita Scale, according to the NWS. Their rating is based on estimated wind speeds and related damage, with the lowest being an EF-0 with three-second gusts 65 to 85 mph and the strongest being an EF-5 with gusts more than 200 mph.

After the storm, the NWS received multiple images of the funnel cloud off I-75, but until they were sent a video of it touching down — even just briefly — Wednesday afternoon, they couldn’t confirm it was a tornado, Flannery said. “Until that point, there was nothing to conclusively say that it touched the ground.”

Different air masses came into play at the same time during Tuesday’s storm, a tropical atmosphere at the surface and a continental air mass above it, creating a higher potential for damaging winds and hail, the meteorologist added.

Though the storm produced three tornados, they were all “very, very weak and brief in nature,” Flannery said. “They were not like the violent tornadoes you see in the Plains. They were more like a water spout over land. The technical term is more like a land spout.”