{"id":284118,"date":"2026-05-25T22:36:22","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T22:36:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/284118\/"},"modified":"2026-05-25T22:36:22","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T22:36:22","slug":"tornado-touches-down-in-hillsborough-county-nws-confirms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/284118\/","title":{"rendered":"Tornado touches down in Hillsborough County, NWS confirms"},"content":{"rendered":"

The National Weather Service confirmed that a waterspout briefly moved onshore in the Bay Port Colony neighborhood of Town ‘n’ Country.<\/p>\n

TOWN ‘N’ COUNTRY, Fla. \u2014 A tornado briefly touched down in Town \u2018N\u2019 Country during Sunday evening\u2019s storms, causing minor damage in the Villages of Bayport community but leaving no injuries behind.<\/p>\n

According to the National Weather Service, a waterspout moved onshore at 6:58 p.m. near Schooner Way and Galleon Way. It produced winds of up to 79 mph and measured about .36 miles long and 75 yards wide.<\/p>\n


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The tornado was rated EF-0, the weakest rating on the Enhanced Fujita Scale, which classifies tornadoes based on estimated wind speeds and damage.<\/p>\n

Residents spent Monday cleaning up debris scattered across yards and canals. Damage included torn screen enclosures, downed branches and patio furniture blown into the water. A large tree was also knocked over, though neighbors said it narrowly missed nearby homes.<\/p>\n

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Neighbors in the community said the storm intensified quickly.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was kinda nasty, the wind was blowing, rain was coming down sideways,\u201d resident Tony Sclafani said. \u201cIt really picked up at one point.\u201d<\/p>\n

One resident captured a picture of the tornado as it moved through the neighborhood.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust before the tornado formed, thunderstorm convergence was taking place along the Florida west coast as sea breeze boundaries collided,\u201d National Weather Service meteorologists wrote in a preliminary report. \u201cSeveral thunderstorms developed along a line extending from Sarasota Bay, through Manatee County, and into Tampa Bay.\u201d<\/p>\n

Residents said the worst of the storm only lasted about 30 to 45 seconds.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were sitting out on the patio, the screened area, it was already starting to storm, but all of a sudden, you saw debris start flying sideways across the canal,\u201d resident Rolando Chang said.<\/p>\n

Chang said patio chairs and kayaks in his backyard were lifted by the storm.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe chairs and kayaks that were in my backyard started flying, and I kinda figured out what was going on; it was possibly a twister, and I had everybody get inside as quickly as they could,\u201d Chang said.<\/p>\n

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The National Weather Service reported damage to a pool cage and several additional structures in the Bay Port Colony community.<\/p>\n

Despite the damage, residents said they are grateful the tornado was not stronger.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019re just incredibly lucky that we just had some minor damage, furniture, nothing that can\u2019t be replaced,\u201d Chang said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The National Weather Service confirmed that a waterspout briefly moved onshore in the Bay Port Colony neighborhood of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284119,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-284118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}