Tornadoes · United States · Ohio · 2008
EF0 tornado, Martinsville, Ohio, June 3, 2008
This EF0 tornado ran 0.2 miles across Clinton County on June 3, 2008, touching down at 12:25 AM EDT and reaching 25 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $15,000 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
- June 3, 2008
- Touchdown
- 12:25 AM EDT (04:25 UTC)
- Lifted
- 12:28 AM EDT (04:28 UTC)
- On the ground
- 3 minutes
- Path length
- 0.2 miles (0.3 km)
- Path width
- 25 yards (23 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $15,000
- County
- Clinton County
- Touchdown point
- 39.313, -83.819
- Lift-off point
- 39.313, -83.816
- Record number
- 0806032225-01
What the Weather Service recorded
Thunderstorms developed in the afternoon along a northward moving warm front. Additional thunderstorms developed during the evening as the front moved north.
A brief tornado touchdown occurred along Jonesboro Road just southwest of Martinsville. A barn and a shed sustained damage, along with a few trees and numerous large limbs. The estimated wind speed was 65 mph.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
29 minutes of warning. NWS ILN issued a tornado warning for this county at 03:56 UTC, 29 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 04:45 UTC.
The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 00:48 UTC and running to 07:00 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 19:37 UTC | 21:34 UTC | Tornado Watch | ILN |
| 23:48 UTC | 01:45 UTC | Flood Advisory | ILN |
| 23:58 UTC | 01:00 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | ILN |
| 00:12 UTC | 01:00 UTC | Tornado Warning | ILN |
| 00:40 UTC | 01:30 UTC | Tornado Warning | ILN |
| 00:48 UTC | 07:00 UTC | Tornado Watch | ILN |
| 01:01 UTC | 03:00 UTC | Flash Flood Warning | ILN |
| 01:17 UTC | 02:15 UTC | Tornado Warning | ILN |
| 02:02 UTC | 02:31 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | ILN |
| 02:14 UTC | 02:43 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | ILN |
| 02:42 UTC | 06:45 UTC | Flash Flood Warning | ILN |
| 03:56 UTC | 04:45 UTC | Tornado Warning | ILN |
| 07:00 UTC | 13:18 UTC | Tornado Watch | ILN |
| 08:00 UTC | 04:00 UTC | Flood Watch | ILN |
| 11:46 UTC | 12:30 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | ILN |
| 12:10 UTC | 14:15 UTC | Flood Advisory | ILN |
| 12:13 UTC | 13:00 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | ILN |
| 13:18 UTC | 20:00 UTC | Tornado Watch | ILN |
| 20:37 UTC | 00:16 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Watch | ILN |
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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 01:01 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), 00:00Z
4.4 hours before the tornado, 13 km from the path. June 4, 2008.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 1752 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -27 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 482 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 498 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 58 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 41 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 431 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 584 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 30.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.7 K/km
Cncnati-Daytn, OH (KILN), 12:00Z
7.6 hours after it, 13 km from the path. June 4, 2008.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 565 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -66 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 232 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 651 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 64 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 35 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 288 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 379 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 1.2
- Supercell composite
- 7.8
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.2 K/km
The radar
The Cincinnati radar (KILN), 12 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 04:23 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01:25 UTC | HAIL 0.75 | Xenia | Greene, OH | |
| 01:27 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Spring Valley | Greene, OH | TREE DOWN |
| 01:27 UTC | FLASH FLOOD | 6 Se Xenia | Greene, OH | ONE CAR ACCIDENT ON FLOODED ROADWAY. VEHICLE OVERTURNED ON ROUTE 68 NEAR MIDDLETON CORNER. |
| 01:27 UTC | FLASH FLOOD | Spring Valley | Greene, OH | SEVERAL ROADS FLOODED |
| 01:30 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Oakland | Clinton, OH | POWER OUTAGE |
| 02:00 UTC | HEAVY RAIN 4.1 | 10 Nw Wilmington | Clinton, OH | SINCE THIS MORNING. |
| 02:10 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 4 Ese Xenia | Greene, OH | A NUMBER OF TREES WERE BLOWN DOWN ACROSS THE COUNTY. |
| 02:10 UTC | FLOOD | Xenia | Greene, OH | SEVERAL STREETS WERE FLOODED IN XENIA. |
| 02:24 UTC | HEAVY RAIN 2.24 | Centerville | Montgomery, OH | MEASURED SINCE 6 PM. |
| 02:35 UTC | HEAVY RAIN 2.41 | 3 N Wilmington | Clinton, OH | |
| 04:28 UTC | TORNADO | Martinsville | Clinton, OH | A BARN AND SHED WERE DAMAGED...WITH NUMEROUS TREES DAMAGED IN THE AREA AS WELL. THE TORNADO HAS BEEN RATED AN EF0 ON THE ENHANCED FUJITA SCALE...WITH WIND SPEEDS ESTIMATED AT AROUND 65 MPH. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2008 tornado in OhioEvery tornado in Ohio since 1950Warnings in force in Ohio nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of June 3, 2008
11 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 3 | 7:54 AM CDT | EF0 | Marion, IL | 0.1 | 50 | |||
| June 3 | 11:10 AM EDT | EF1 | Greene, IN | 27.1 | 100 | 1 | $170,000 | |
| June 3 | 2:30 PM EDT | EF0 | Morgan, IN | 0.4 | 50 | $20,000 | ||
| June 3 | 7:27 PM EDT | EF0 | City of Roanoke, VA | 1.6 | 60 | $350,000 | ||
| June 3 | 8:40 PM EDT | EF0 | Chesterfield, VA | 0.3 | 20 | $3,000 | ||
| June 3 | 9:04 PM EDT | EF3 | Shelby, IN | 9.7 | 150 | 1 | 8 | $1.2 million |
| June 3 | 9:05 PM EDT | EF0 | Butler, OH | 0.3 | 25 | $30,000 | ||
| June 3 | 9:24 PM EDT | EF2 | Brown, IN | 10.6 | 150 | 4 | $23 million | |
| June 3 | 8:32 PM CDT | EF0 | Scott, IL | 6.7 | 75 | |||
| June 3 | 9:50 PM EDT | EF1 | Decatur, IN | 4.1 | 75 | $70,000 | ||
| June 3 | 12:25 AM CDT | EF1 | Camden, MO | 6.0 | 100 | $10,000 |
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.