Fort Pierce - Thursday June 30, 2033 - A tornado touched down near the Treasure Coast International Airport this afternoon. It rustled some vegetation and brought down some leaves, but caused no serious damage.
The funnel cloud was reported just before 1 o’clock Thursday afternoon near the airport tower. Treasure Coast Airport Deputy Manager Tony Scott saw it - "We had a small funnel cloud touch down right next to the FAA tower, it was on the ground for about 45 seconds.”
Scott said he watched it as it stirred up the turf but it never made it to the control tower or runway area. “The funnel cloud was only in public areas of the airfield. It never made it onto the airport operations area where the aircraft are," and "no buildings were damaged, nobody was injured. It was more bushes, tress, lots of palm fronds in the area.”
The National Weather Service in Melbourne did issue a tornado warning but cancelled it just before 2 pm. Meteorologist Tim Sedlock said the Treasure Coast Airport tower called NWS to say they had had "spotted a funnel cloud at the tower and there was just a brief touch-down, less than a minute." Sedlock said the storm that produced the tornado was "very isolated" ad "short-lived."
This was the second reported tornado touchdown in St. Lucie County this month after a twister blew off the roof of a barn on West Angle Road between I-95 and the Turnpike on June 7.