March 1983 South Florida tornado outbreak El Niño. The Everglades–Lighthouse Point tornado featured the second-longest path recorded south of Lake Okeechobee; only one tornado in 1968 featured a longer path of in southern Florida. March 1983 South Florida tornado outbreak The March 1983 South Florida tornado outbreak was a significant severe weather event that affected the southern Florida peninsula, including the Miami metropolitan area, on March 17, 1983. A total of at least five tornadoes affected the region as many as 17 were reported, only two were confirmed in the official National Weather Service records. The strongest tornado produced F2 damage on the Fujita scale and
Miami River (Florida) to improve the river's condition. Although it is widely believed that the name is derived from a Native American word that means "sweet water", the earliest mention of the name comes from Hernando de Escalante Fontaneda, a captive of Indians in southern Florida for 17 years, when he referred to what is now Lake Okeechobee as the "Lake of Mayaimi, which is called Mayaimi because it is very large". The Mayaimi Indians were named after the lake, beside which they lived. Spanish records include the cacique of "Maimi" in a group of 280 Florida Indians that arrived in Cuba in