Tornadoes · United States · Ohio · 2001

F1 tornado, Meigs County, Ohio, May 21, 2001

This F1 tornado ran 4.0 miles across Meigs County on May 21, 2001, touching down at 6:35 PM EDT and reaching 200 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $400,000 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 21, 2001
Touchdown
6:35 PM EDT (22:35 UTC)
Path length
4.0 miles (6.4 km)
Path width
200 yards (183 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$400,000
County
Meigs County
Touchdown point
39.020, -82.280
Lift-off point
39.050, -82.220
Record number
148

The warnings

25 minutes of warning. NWS RLX issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:10 UTC, 25 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 22:45 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
22:10 UTC22:45 UTCTornado WarningRLX
22:50 UTC23:15 UTCTornado WarningRLX
23:03 UTC02:00 UTCFlash Flood WarningRLX
23:29 UTC23:45 UTCTornado WarningRLX

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 19:56 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

10.6 hours before the tornado, 141 km from the path. May 21, 2001.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Cncnati-Daytn, OH at 12:00Z on 2001-05-21Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 1016 joules per kilogram, CIN -24, lifted condensation level 731 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 2001-05-21The 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 128 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 18 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
1016 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-24 J/kg
Surface CAPE
628 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
731 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
18 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
25 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
128 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
129 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
6.0 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

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

1.4 hours after it, 141 km from the path. May 22, 2001.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Cncnati-Daytn, OH at 00:00Z on 2001-05-22Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 22 joules per kilogram, CIN -2, lifted condensation level 1034 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLEL10008507005003002001001 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 2001-05-22The 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 57 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 19 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
22 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-2 J/kg
Surface CAPE
360 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1034 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
19 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
18 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
57 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
71 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.3
0-3 km lapse rate
6.4 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Parkersburg (PKB), 77 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
20:53 UTC7065160° 8 kt1006.1
21:53 UTC7066120° 8 kt1005.4
22:53 UTC7066120° 5 kt1004.7
23:24 UTC69.866.2110° 5 kt1004.4VCTS
23:53 UTC696640° 4 kt1004.4VCTS RA
00:15 UTC66.266.2250° 21 kt271005.4+TSRA BR
00:22 UTC64.464.4230° 11 kt271005.1+TSRA FG

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

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2001 tornado in OhioEvery tornado in Ohio since 1950Warnings in force in Ohio nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of May 21, 2001

25 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
May 211:23 PM EDTF0Oakland, MI1.0150$70,000
May 212:15 PM EDTF0Eaton, MI6.050$300,000
May 212:20 PM EDTF2Kalamazoo, MI1.0150$500,000
May 212:34 PM EDTF2Livingston, MI10.92003$3.0 million
May 212:35 PM EDTF0Kent, MI0.650$100,000
May 212:35 PM EDTF0Ottawa, MI0.150$50,000
May 212:50 PM EDTF0Barry, MI1.050$200,000
May 212:52 PM EDTF0Allegan, MI1.550$50,000
May 212:55 PM EDTF1Clinton, MI4.550$300,000
May 213:00 PM EDTF0Shiawassee, MI0.130
May 213:29 PM EDTF1Kent, MI0.350$200,000
May 213:30 PM EDTF0Ionia, MI1.050$100,000
May 213:40 PM EDTF0Kent, MI0.150$50,000
May 213:50 PM EDTF0Kent, MI0.150$70,000
May 214:20 PM EDTF1Gratiot, MI3.0401$150,000
May 214:40 PM EDTF0Gratiot, MI2.550$30,000
May 214:40 PM EDTF1Isabella, MI4.0401$150,000
May 215:02 PM EDTF0Genesee, MI7.3100$140,000
May 215:25 PM EDTF2Medina, OH7.580$1.0 million
May 215:30 PM EDTF0Clare, MI0.130$10,000
May 216:05 PM EDTF0City of Suffolk, VA0.225$30,000
May 217:43 PM EDTF1Stark, OH0.51001$450,000
May 218:10 PM EDTF0Wood, WV0.7100$180,000
May 219:15 PM CDTF1Hidalgo, TX0.175$30,000
May 219:25 PM CDTF1Hidalgo, TX0.275$70,000

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.