Tornadoes · United States · Ohio · 1998

F1 tornado, Zanesville, Ohio, June 27, 1998

This F1 tornado ran 2.0 miles across Muskingum County on June 27, 1998, touching down at 7:30 PM EDT and reaching 100 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $20,000 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
June 27, 1998
Touchdown
7:30 PM EDT (23:30 UTC)
Path length
2.0 miles (3.2 km)
Path width
100 yards (91 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$20,000
County
Muskingum County
Touchdown point
39.930, -81.980
Lift-off point
39.920, -81.970
Record number
635

What the Weather Service recorded

A weak F1 tornado with winds estimated at 80 MPH left a path of toppled and snapped trees as it touched down near the radio station WHIZ just southeast of Zanesville and moved to the southeast. The only property damage was to an old wood garage that was completely destroyed.

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

The forecast that day

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 10:56 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

11.5 hours before the tornado, 166 km from the path. June 27, 1998.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Cncnati-Daytn, OH at 12:00Z on 1998-06-27Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 2641 joules per kilogram, CIN -18, lifted condensation level 893 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 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 12:00Z on 1998-06-27The 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 123 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 27 knots.1939Sfc1 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
2641 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-18 J/kg
Surface CAPE
3317 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
893 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
27 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
24 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
123 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
115 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
1.1
Supercell composite
6.6
0-3 km lapse rate
4.9 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

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

0.5 hours after it, 166 km from the path. June 28, 1998.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Cncnati-Daytn, OH at 00:00Z on 1998-06-28Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 2378 joules per kilogram, CIN -5, lifted condensation level 1345 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 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 1998-06-28The 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 109 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 30 knots.193958Sfc1 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
2378 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-5 J/kg
Surface CAPE
4515 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1345 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
30 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
18 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
109 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
238 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.9
Supercell composite
11.8
0-3 km lapse rate
6.6 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Zanesville (ZZV), 7 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
00:00 UTC

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

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 1998 tornado in OhioEvery tornado in Ohio since 1950Warnings in force in Ohio nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of June 27, 1998

32 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
June 2711:30 AM EDTF0Pendleton, WV0.350$10,000
June 274:15 PM CDTF0Jackson, MN2.0100$100,000
June 274:30 PM CDTF0Lyon, IA0.150
June 274:45 PM CDTF1Osceola, IA4.0100$500,000
June 275:36 PM CDTF0Martin, MN1.550
June 275:42 PM CDTF0Martin, MN2.550
June 276:45 PM EDTF1Muskingum, OH2.51502$250,000
June 275:46 PM CDTF0Faribault, MN0.550
June 275:51 PM CDTF1Faribault, MN1.050
June 276:03 PM CDTF0Nicollet, MN3.050
June 277:15 PM EDTF0Knox, OH0.570$10,000
June 276:27 PM CDTF0Rice, MN0.130
June 276:30 PM CDTF1Freeborn, MN1.050
June 277:45 PM EDTF0Guernsey, OH3.5100$50,000
June 277:02 PM CDTF0Rice, MN0.130
June 278:05 PM EDTF2Noble, OH0.320011$70,000
June 277:05 PM CDTF0Goodhue, MN0.150
June 277:05 PM CDTF0Goodhue, MN0.550
June 277:08 PM CDTF0Goodhue, MN0.150
June 277:19 PM CDTF0Goodhue, MN0.150
June 277:46 PM CDTF2Cerro Gordo, IA7.550$50,000
June 278:08 PM CDTF0Howard, IA0.330
June 278:15 PM CDTF0Grand Forks, ND0.230
June 278:22 PM CDTF2Cerro Gordo, IA12.550$120,000
June 279:45 PM CDTF0Jefferson, NE0.550
June 279:53 PM CDTF1Washington, KS4.5100$60,000
June 2710:10 PM CDTF0Washington, KS3.050$10,000
June 2710:20 PM CDTF0Gage, NE0.250
June 2710:23 PM CDTF2Butler, IA25.580$10,000
June 2710:45 PM CDTF0Washington, KS0.230
June 2711:10 PM CDTF1Marshall, KS6.080$810,000
June 2712:20 AM CDTF0Tama, IA0.130

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.