Officials confirmed a tornado touched down in Miami-Dade on Tuesday as a fierce storm knocked out power, toppled trees and even flipped a boat.
National Weather Service officials said Wednesday that a brief EF-0 tornado moved through the Palm Springs North community near Miami Gardens around 4:45 p.m. Tuesday.
The NWS preliminary report said the estimated peak wind was 85 mph and the tornado’s path was .57 miles. A survey team determined the EF-0 rating based on mostly tree and power pole damage along with scattered fence and signage damage.
Neighbors described the storm as what they imagine a tornado would feel like.
“Honestly, I’ve never been through anything like this. I’ve never seen anything this crazy come through this area,” neighbor Adriana Martin said.
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An aerial image shows a front yard at Northwest 78th Avenue and Northwest 181st Street on April 8, 2026. Two trees and a fence are knocked down.
Videos from Only in Dade captured the furious winds in one backyard that ripped off part of a backyard roof and even a kids’ playset.
“You’re sitting in your home one minute looking out the window enjoying your view, and then you have this crazy wind coming through your backyard, gust after gust, and you start seeing someone’s temporary roof flying through your backyard,” Martin said.
A severe thunderstorm moved through northern Miami-Dade and southern Broward counties earlier this afternoon.
Please tag us at @NWSMiami with any reports of wind damage or hail. https://t.co/h9wwREfJtP
— NWS Miami (@NWSMiami) April 7, 2026
The damage includes fallen trees, torn fences and even a boat flipped over onto its side. Hours after these scenes, residents took matters into their own hands, cutting branches off of toppled trees.
Martin said it was a terrifying sight.
“My daughter and my son asking me, what do we do, should we leave? Where do we go? We don’t have any power,” she said.
One man said his parents called him for help.
“I was able to help them because they sent me a picture. Both of the trees fell down,” he said. “Even the neighbor, the mailbox flew away. So it was kind of crazy.”
Officials said no injuries were reported as a result of the storm.
Around 200 homes were without power Tuesday night, according to Florida Power and Light. The outages were widely fixed by Wednesday morning, according to an outage map.
Earlier Tuesday, the FAA issued a ground stop at Miami International Airport with weather causing hundreds of delays.
The National Weather Service said Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties remain under a flood watch until 10 p.m. Wednesday.