CLEARWATER, Florida — Two tornadoes tore through the Tampa Bay area overnight as storms swept through the entire region.
One tornado happened in Clearwater Beach where a beachfront sky cam caught a large waterspout moving near Pier 60. It was suspected — and now confirmed — that the waterspout came ashore as a tornado.
The National Weather Service Tampa Bay confirmed Thursday night that it was an EF-2 tornado with an estimated peak wind speed of 115 mph. It stretched 4.96 miles long and 300 yards wide.
Weather officials said it swept through the Clearwater/Dunedin area between 1:47 and 1:55 a.m. Thursday.
Significant damage was reported in a neighborhood north of the main beach.
A second tornado touched down near the Crystal River area in Citrus County, which forced the closure of several roads and the cancellation of all classes for Citrus County Schools.
According to the NWS, this was also an EF-2 tornado with an estimated peak wind speed of 125 mph. The tornado stretched 5.59 miles and 300 yards as it moved through between 2:08 and 2:19 a.m.
While two tornadoes have been confirmed so far, NWS researchers say additional confirmed tornadoes are likely as they continue to review data.
The tornado that moved through Clearwater Beach and Dunedin flipped cars, broke windows and twisted light poles. Strong winds even blew a port-a-potty on top of a pole.
"There was debris everywhere. Found our window had been blown out. Glass everywhere. This was all chaos. You couldn’t really walk through the parking lot because of all the debris," said Cindy Haynes, the manager of The Gym in the Causeway Plaza.
As business owners work to clean up the extensive damage, they remain thankful that no one was injured.
10 Tampa Bay's Claire Farrow and Shannon Clowe contributed to this report.