EF1 tornado, Wetsel, Ohio, November 17, 2013

1. EF065 to 85 mph

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

2. EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. EF4166 to 200 mph

   Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

6. 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.

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.

Rating

EF1

Date

November 17, 2013

Touchdown

4:47 PM EST (21:47 UTC)

Lifted

4:49 PM EST (21:49 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

2.1 miles (3.4 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Van Wert County

Touchdown point

40.970, -84.457

Lift-off point

40.988, -84.424

Record number

1311171547-01

10 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS IWX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 130 mph.

• Barn roof ripped off with both wood rafters and lots of roof sheting carried out through a field to the NW for about a mile to near the Putnam/Paulding County line.
• Start point. Barn damaged with hay wagons thrown and moved.
• Horse trailer flipped onto a pickup a trick, roof damage to barn.
• Siding damage to barn, mobile home shifted off foundation.

Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.

Deep low pressure moved across the northern Great Lakes, with a strong cold front trailing well south into Arkansas. A 50 to 60 knot low level jet aided in advecting in dewpoints greater than 60 degrees. 0-1km storm relative helicity values of 400 to 600 m2/s2 setup the perfect environment for individual thunderstorms to rapidly rotate. Numerous circulations were noted during the event, some significant, which produced swaths of wind damage as well as several weak to strong tornadoes. Given forward speed of 60 mph or more, the convection quickly translated across northwestern Ohio over a few hour period.

A survey of damage in the northeastern part of Van Wert county by county emergency management officials and a NWS Survey team revealed that a EF1 tornado produced damage along a roughly two and one tenth mile long path. Touchdown occurred south of the intersection of Elm Sugar and Donner Road where several barns on two adjacent properties suffered damage. The northern most barn suffered extensive roof damage and loss of trusses (DI: SBO DOD: 4) with other barns suffering partial roof damage. The tornado continued northeast across open fields and occasional wooded areas, causing sporadic tree damage. A horse trailer was flipped over onto a truck at a residence on Middle Point Wetzel Road with a barn suffering minor roof damage. The tornado reached its end point at a business where some travel campers were flipped and some metal roofing was damaged. Maximum wind speeds with the tornado are estimated at 100 mph.

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

11 minutes of warning. NWS IWX issued a tornado warning for this county at 21:36 UTC, 11 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 22:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 16:28 UTC and running to 22:43 UTC.

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 Storm Prediction Center had this point in a High Risk, with a 0.15 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 20:02 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 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.

Defiance (DFI), 40 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Northern Indiana radar (KIWX), 114 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:47 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.

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

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

The live radar over the trackEvery 2013 tornado in OhioEvery tornado in Ohio since 1950Warnings in force in Ohio nowThe forecast where you are

75 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 76 of them

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.

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.