Winter Garden, FL Tornado History — 139 Tornadoes Since 1950
How many tornadoes has Winter Garden, FL had?
Winter Garden has had 139 tornadoes on record within 25 miles since 1950, including 5 violent (EF3+) tornadoes.
When was the most recent tornado near Winter Garden?
The most recent tornado within 25 miles of Winter Garden was an Unrated on May 12, 2025.
When is tornado season in Winter Garden?
June is historically the peak month for tornadoes near Winter Garden, with 22 on record. Spring through early summer (April–June) generally sees the highest activity across most of the central and southern United States.
At a Glance
Recent Tornado Activity Near Winter Garden
The last 20 years of confirmed tornadoes within 25 miles — 27 total, averaging 1.4 per year over this window.
Tornadoes by Decade
Tornadoes by Enhanced Fujita Rating
F0–F5 ratings (pre-2007) are grouped with their EF equivalents. The Enhanced Fujita scale replaced the original Fujita scale in February 2007.
Tornadoes by Month
Casualties on Record Near Winter Garden
55 fatalities have been recorded within 25 miles of Winter Garden since 1950, across 7 events. 962 injuries have been reported across all events. 1998 was the deadliest year on record.
The deadliest single event was a F3 on February 23, 1998, which caused 25 fatalities along a 28.0-mile track.
Notable Tornadoes Near Winter Garden
About Tornadoes in Winter Garden
This overview was written August 10, 2026. The tornado counts and notable-event figures elsewhere on this page reflect the latest data and may differ from this summary.
The tornado that tore across the Winter Garden area on February 23, 1998 — an F3 that killed 25 people, injured 150, and stayed on the ground for 28 miles — arrived not in summer but in the depths of the cool season, and that timing captures how tornado risk works in this corner of central Florida. Summer afternoons follow a familiar rhythm here: sea-breeze boundaries pushing inland from the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic collide over the peninsula, and the tornadoes their storms spin up tend to be brief. The cool months follow a different script. When El Niño sharpens the subtropical jet stream, squall lines sweep across Florida after dark, and the tornadoes embedded in them can be far fiercer — the February 1998 outbreak, which spawned other F3 tornadoes across the region, remains the defining local example.
The record maintained by the NOAA Storm Prediction Center shows that pattern repeating across the decades. On April 4, 1966, an F4 cut a 135.8-mile path through central Florida, killing 11 people and injuring 530. March 19, 1981 brought an F3 to the area, and on March 13, 1993 an F2 riding a sprawling late-winter storm system killed a resident and injured 60. An EF2 on March 10, 2025 damaged homes along a 4-mile track west of Orlando, causing roughly 3.9 million dollars in losses. The event list elsewhere on this page traces the fuller sequence, but the lesson holds: around Winter Garden, spring and the cool season, not just summer, demand attention.