EF0 tornado, Columbus So Columbus, Ohio, October 31, 2013

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

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

2. EF186 to 110 mph

   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

EF0

Date

October 31, 2013

Touchdown

12:40 AM EDT (04:40 UTC)

Lifted

12:41 AM EDT (04:41 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.3 miles (0.4 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$300,000

County

Franklin County

Touchdown point

39.878, -82.996

Lift-off point

39.877, -82.992

Record number

1310312240-01

A potent low pressure system moved across the region, bringing strong winds aloft across the Ohio Valley. Showers that developed along and ahead of a cold front associated with this storm system were capable of producing damaging winds and isolated weak tornadoes. This line of showers producing the damage across southwestern Ohio continued past midnight on October 31st and into the early morning hours of November 1st.

The tornado touched down and moved through a manufactured home community just north of Interstate 270 in southern Columbus. The tornado was on the ground for about a quarter of a mile before it lifted. During that time, 3 mobile homes were destroyed, 4 sustained major damage, and 23 sustained minor damage. The damage that occurred to some of the homes included partial roofs being torn off the buildings, and the units being shifted off of their foundations. Based on the damage surveyed, the maximum wind speed of this tornado was estimated to be 85 miles per hour.

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

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 02:10 UTC and running to 05:43 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:43 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.

Rickenbacker Ang (LCK), 9 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Cincinnati radar (KILN), 87 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 04:42 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

32 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

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.