Tornadoes · United States · Ohio · 2006

F0 tornado, Grove City to Bexley, Ohio, August 28, 2006

From Grove City to Bexley, this F0 tornado ran 0.1 miles across Franklin County on August 28, 2006, touching down at 7:28 PM EDT and reaching 10 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $1,000 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 mphthis tornado

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

  2. F173 to 112 mph

    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
F0
Date
August 28, 2006
Touchdown
7:28 PM EDT (23:28 UTC)
Path length
0.1 miles (0.2 km)
Path width
10 yards (9 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$1,000
County
Franklin County
Touchdown point
39.920, -82.920
Lift-off point
39.920, -82.920
Record number
847

What the Weather Service recorded

A tornado briefly touched down near the intersection of US Route 23 and Interstate 270 on the south side of the Columbus metro area.

A tornado briefly touched down near the intersection of State Route 104 and US Route 33.

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

The warnings

42 minutes of warning. NWS ILN issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:46 UTC, 42 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:30 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
22:46 UTC23:30 UTCTornado WarningILN
23:25 UTC00:00 UTCTornado WarningILN
00:23 UTC04:04 UTCTornado WatchILN

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 General Thunderstorms Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 20:00 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, 93 km from the path. August 28, 2006.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Cncnati-Daytn, OH at 12:00Z on 2006-08-28Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 65 joules per kilogram, CIN -119, lifted condensation level 867 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°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 2006-08-28The 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 -5 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 32 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
65 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-119 J/kg
Surface CAPE
146 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
867 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
32 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
9 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-5 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
45 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
-0.0
Supercell composite
-0.1
0-3 km lapse rate
4.6 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

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

0.5 hours after it, 93 km from the path. August 29, 2006.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Cncnati-Daytn, OH at 00:00Z on 2006-08-29Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 1216 joules per kilogram, CIN -5, lifted condensation level 657 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°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 2006-08-29The 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 88 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 31 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
1216 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-5 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1834 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
657 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
31 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
14 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
88 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
120 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.5
Supercell composite
3.2
0-3 km lapse rate
5.3 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Cincinnati radar (KILN), 95 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:28 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.

What was reported nearby

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

Time (UTC)ReportWhereCountyRemark
22:21 UTCTORNADO7 Sse CirclevillePickaway, OHMINOR STRUCTURAL DAMAGE REPORTED NEAR HIGHWAY 361 AT BOGGS ROAD
22:42 UTCTORNADO6 Se CirclevillePickaway, OHBRIEF TOUCHDOWN REPORTED NEAR HIGHWAY 56 AND HIGHWAY 159

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2006 tornado in OhioEvery tornado in Ohio since 1950Warnings in force in Ohio nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of August 28, 2006

8 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
August 286:22 PM EDTF0Pickaway, OH1.550$250,000
August 286:42 PM EDTF0Pickaway, OH0.110$1,000
August 287:10 PM EDTF0Franklin, OH0.110$1,000
August 287:55 PM EDTF1Adams, IN2.075$120,000
August 288:17 PM EDTF0Rush, IN0.675$50,000
August 289:20 PM EDTF0Mercer, OH0.860$20,000
August 289:45 PM EDTF1Putnam, OH1.075$10,000
August 2810:00 PM EDTF0Auglaize, OH0.8300$100,000

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.