Tornadoes · United States · Ohio · 1996

F1 tornado, Mc Dermott to Minford, Ohio, May 4, 1996

From Mc Dermott to Minford, this F1 tornado ran 15.0 miles across Scioto County on May 4, 1996, touching down at 5:30 PM EDT and reaching 100 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $30,000 of property damage.

The rating scale

Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.

  1. F040 to 72 mph

    Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

  2. F173 to 112 mphthis tornado

    Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

  3. F2113 to 157 mph

    Considerable damage. Roofs torn off well-built houses, frame homes shifted on their foundations, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, cars lifted off the ground.

  4. F3158 to 206 mph

    Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.

  5. F4207 to 260 mph

    Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

  6. F5261 to 318 mph

    Incredible damage. Strong frame houses swept off their foundations, car-sized missiles thrown more than 100 meters, steel-reinforced concrete badly damaged, high-rise buildings deformed.

  7. Unrated

    The survey recorded a tornado but could not put a number on it, most often because it crossed open country and damaged nothing a rating can be read from.

The record

Rating
F1
Date
May 4, 1996
Touchdown
5:30 PM EDT (21:30 UTC)
Path length
15.0 miles (24.1 km)
Path width
100 yards (91 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$30,000
County
Scioto County
Touchdown point
38.830, -83.070
Lift-off point
38.850, -82.850
Record number
507

What the Weather Service recorded

A tornado moved from McDermott through Lucasville to Minford ripping a roof off a mobile home, and destroying a barn. Moderate damage occurred to two other mobile homes and some store windows were blown out. Power lines and 40 trees were knocked down leaving 1000 homes without electricity.

From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.

The warnings

2 minutes of warning. NWS ILN issued a tornado warning for this county at 21:28 UTC, 2 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 22:15 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
05:22 UTC06:15 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningILN
05:22 UTC06:15 UTCFlash Flood WarningILN
19:31 UTC20:00 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningILN
19:57 UTC20:45 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningILN
21:11 UTC22:15 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningILN
21:28 UTC22:15 UTCTornado WarningILN

Every warning and watch covering the touchdown point that day, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service products. Lead time is measured from the issue of the warning in force to the touchdown time in the database, both of which were recorded to the minute by different people.

The forecast that day

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 05:49 UTC.

SPC's Day 1 convective outlook as it stood when the tornado began, read at the touchdown point. The same archive is on the radar archive.

The air that afternoon

The radiosonde launches on either side of the tornado, from the nearest station that was launching then, drawn and analyzed the way Storm Lab does: the same diagram, the same parcel and shear definitions SPC's mesoanalysis uses.

Cncnati-Daytn, OH (KILN), 12:00Z

9.5 hours before the tornado, 98 km from the path. May 4, 1996.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Cncnati-Daytn, OH at 12:00Z on 1996-05-04Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 0 joules per kilogram, CIN -3523, lifted condensation level 688 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Cncnati-Daytn, OH at 12:00Z on 1996-05-04The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity -5 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 60 knots.19395878Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-3523 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
688 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
60 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
14 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-5 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
215 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
3.6 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Cncnati-Daytn, OH (KILN), 00:00Z

2.5 hours after it, 98 km from the path. May 5, 1996.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Cncnati-Daytn, OH at 00:00Z on 1996-05-05Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 0 joules per kilogram, CIN -23772, lifted condensation level 1064 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Cncnati-Daytn, OH at 00:00Z on 1996-05-05The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity -89 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 57 knots.19395878Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-23772 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1064 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
57 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
15 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-89 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
103 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.1 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Huntington/Tri Stat (HTS), 63 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
20:00 UTC7861200° 8 kt1013.2
21:00 UTC8163200° 8 kt1010.2
22:00 UTC7961270° 6 kt1012.2TS
23:00 UTC6463320° 14 kt1011.9-TSRA
23:05 UTC320° 11 kt1015.6

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The radar

The Cincinnati radar (KILN), 98 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:32 UTC.

Open the radar archive at this moment, over the track

Reflectivity and velocity, decoded from the Level II archive in the browser. Volumes take a few seconds to open the first time.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 1996 tornado in OhioEvery tornado in Ohio since 1950Warnings in force in Ohio nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of May 4, 1996

1 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
May 46:00 PM EDTF1Gallia, OH0.7100$250,000

What this means

Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. Tornado counts rise through the record as reporting improved, so a year in the 1950s is not comparable with one today except for the strongest tornadoes, which were always noticed.

Sources

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.