Tornadoes · United States · Ohio · 2007
EF0 tornado, Bettsville, Ohio, August 5, 2007
This EF0 tornado ran 0.8 miles across Seneca County on August 5, 2007, touching down at 7:50 PM EDT and reaching 10 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $60,000 of property damage.
The rating scale
Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Enhanced Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.
EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mph
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
EF2111 to 135 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.
EF3136 to 165 mph
Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.
EF4166 to 200 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
EF5over 200 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.
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
- EF0
- Date
- August 5, 2007
- Touchdown
- 7:50 PM EDT (23:50 UTC)
- Lifted
- 7:53 PM EDT (23:53 UTC)
- On the ground
- 3 minutes
- Path length
- 0.8 miles (1.2 km)
- Path width
- 10 yards (9 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $60,000
- County
- Seneca County
- Touchdown point
- 41.219, -83.271
- Lift-off point
- 41.210, -83.252
- Record number
- 0708051750-01
What the Weather Service recorded
A frontal boundary stretched across northern Ohio during the evening hours of the 5th. This boundary provided a favorable environment that evening for a few thunderstorms to develop across the area that were able to produce a few weak tornadoes.
A tornado touched down on a farm southwest of Bettsville. This touchdown occurred along Township Road 154 about a half mile to the west of State Route 635. A follow-up survey of the damage was conducted and the tornado was determined to be an EF0. The tornado damaged a metal building and a gazebo on the farm. The barn had one wall completely blown out. This tornado had a damage path about three quarters of a mile long and no more than 10 yards in width. A distinct damage path was seen in a corn field east of the farm.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 00:19 UTC | 01:00 UTC | Tornado Warning | CLE |
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 21:25 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.
Detroit, MI (KDTX), 12:00Z
11.8 hours before the tornado, 168 km from the path. August 5, 2007.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -115644 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1828 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 34 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 12 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 63 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 145 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.2 K/km
Detroit, MI (KDTX), 00:00Z
0.2 hours after it, 168 km from the path. August 6, 2007.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 1 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -137 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 531 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 32 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 17 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 123 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 196 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.4
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.1 K/km
The surface observations
Findlay (FDY), 41 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (kt) | Pressure (mb) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21:53 UTC | 81 | 73 | 200° 8 kt | 1010.5 | HZ | |
| 22:53 UTC | 80 | 74 | 190° 6 kt | 1009.8 | HZ | |
| 23:33 UTC | 80 | 74 | 280° 5 kt | 1009.8 | HZ | |
| 23:38 UTC | 79 | 75 | 0° 0 kt | 1009.8 | -RA BR | |
| 23:46 UTC | 80 | 74 | 0° 0 kt | 1009.8 | -RA | |
| 23:53 UTC | 80 | 74 | 0° 0 kt | 1009.8 | -RA | |
| 00:01 UTC | 81 | 73 | 240° 8 kt | 1009.8 | HZ | |
| 00:38 UTC | 77 | 71 | 260° 18 kt | 25 | 1010.2 | TSRA |
| 00:46 UTC | 76 | 72 | 240° 9 kt | 22 | 1010.2 | +TSRA BR |
| 00:53 UTC | 76 | 71 | 240° 9 kt | 1010.2 | -TSRA | |
| 01:01 UTC | 76 | 71 | 230° 11 kt | 1009.8 | -RA | |
| 01:37 UTC | 75 | 70 | 150° 4 kt | 1009.5 | VCTS -RA | |
| 01:49 UTC | 75 | 71 | 170° 5 kt | 1009.8 | -TSRA BR |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
The radar
The Cleveland radar (KCLE), 119 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:51 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) | Report | Where | County | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23:59 UTC | TORNADO | 2 S Bettsville | Seneca, OH | HIGH WINDS POSSIBLY ASSOCIATED WITH A TORNADO CAUSED DAMAGE TO A BARN JUST SOUTH OF BETTSVILLE. A SECOND REPORT OF A BARN DAMAGED WAS REPORTED ABOUT 4 MILES EAST NEAR STATE ROUTE 53. NO INJURIES WERE REPORTED. |
| 00:42 UTC | TORNADO | Carey | Wyandot, OH | A TORNADO WAS SITED ON THE GROUND ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF CAREY. NUMEROUS SITINGS OF FUNNEL CLOUDS AND TORNADO TOUCHDOWNS WERE REPORTED BY TRAINED SPOTTERS CONTINUED EAST TO NEAR TYMOCHTEE THROUGH 924PM EDT. THERE WAS ONE R |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2007 tornado in OhioEvery tornado in Ohio since 1950Warnings in force in Ohio nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of August 5, 2007
2 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
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.