Tornadoes · United States · Ohio · 2007
EF0 tornado, Elyria, Ohio, March 14, 2007
This EF0 tornado ran 2.0 miles across Lorain County on March 14, 2007, touching down at 7:32 PM EDT and reaching 20 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 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
- March 14, 2007
- Touchdown
- 7:32 PM EDT (23:32 UTC)
- Lifted
- 7:36 PM EDT (23:36 UTC)
- On the ground
- 4 minutes
- Path length
- 2.0 miles (3.2 km)
- Path width
- 20 yards (18 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $400,000
- County
- Lorain County
- Touchdown point
- 41.370, -82.100
- Lift-off point
- 41.370, -82.100
- Record number
- 0703141732-01
What the Weather Service recorded
A cold front extending through the Great Lakes region into the plains states moved through the area during the late afternoon and evening hours of the 14th. Strong to severe thunderstorms developed ahead of this cold front.
A weak tornado briefly touched down along Griswold Road. The tornado traveled east toward the Midway Mall and created an intermittent damage path approximately two miles long. The tornado caused damage to several structures along its path. A florist/greenhouse suffered extensive damage as much of its roof was torn off. A garage was destroyed, and the car inside sustained severe damage. Newspaper articles also indicated that vinyl siding was torn from the side of an office supply store, and a shopping cart was blown and shattered a window of a store. Numerous trees and power lines were also taken down. No injuries were reported from this tornado.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 19:20 UTC | 14:16 UTC | Flood Watch | CLE |
| 23:41 UTC | 00:15 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, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:50 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
11.5 hours before the tornado, 186 km from the path. March 14, 2007.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 1 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -119 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 753 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 42 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 23 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 61 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 104 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.8 K/km
Detroit, MI (KDTX), 00:00Z
0.5 hours after it, 186 km from the path. March 15, 2007.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -45178 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 4 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 773 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 66 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 10 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- -92 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 104 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.7 K/km
The surface observations
Lorain/Elyria (LPR), 7 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 | 67 | 58 | 240° 13 kt | 1009.1 | HZ | |
| 22:53 UTC | 66 | 57 | 230° 16 kt | 1008.8 | ||
| 23:07 UTC | 66.2 | 57.2 | 230° 13 kt | 1008.5 | VCTS | |
| 23:53 UTC | 64 | 57 | 240° 6 kt | 1008.8 | ||
| 00:53 UTC | 64 | 56 | 240° 13 kt | 1008.5 | ||
| 01:05 UTC | 53.6 | 50 | 360° 38 kt | 45 | 1009.5 | RA BR |
| 01:09 UTC | 51.8 | 48.2 | 20° 25 kt | 45 | 1010.8 | -RA BR |
| 01:16 UTC | 51.8 | 48.2 | 40° 22 kt | 35 | 1011.2 | -RA BR |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
The radar
The Cleveland radar (KCLE), 21 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:33 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22:23 UTC | HAIL 0.88 | Marblehead | Ottawa, OH | |
| 22:27 UTC | HAIL 0.88 | Marblehead | Ottawa, OH | |
| 23:32 UTC | TORNADO | Elyria | Lorain, OH | A TORNADO TOUCHED DOWN ALONG GRISWOLD ROAD ABOUT 732 PM. PATH ABOUT 3/4 MILE TO NEAR THE MIDWAY MALL. A DETACHED SINGLE CAR GARAGE WAS DESTROYED ON GRISWOLD AND MINOR DAMAGE OCCURRED TO SOME NEARBY BUILDINGS INCLUDING A |
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 March 14, 2007
1 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| March 14 | 8:50 AM CDT | EF0 | Terrebonne Parish, LA | 0.2 | 25 | $5,000 |
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.