Tornadoes · United States · Ohio · 2015
EF0 tornado, Hempstead, Ohio, April 19, 2015
This EF0 tornado ran 0.9 miles across Montgomery County on April 19, 2015, touching down at 10:56 PM EDT and reaching 75 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $5,000 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
- April 19, 2015
- Touchdown
- 10:56 PM EDT (02:56 UTC)
- Lifted
- 10:58 PM EDT (02:58 UTC)
- On the ground
- 2 minutes
- Path length
- 0.9 miles (1.4 km)
- Path width
- 75 yards (69 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $5,000
- County
- Montgomery County
- Touchdown point
- 39.670, -84.117
- Lift-off point
- 39.681, -84.111
- Record number
- 1504192056-01
What the Weather Service recorded
Scattered thunderstorms developed ahead of a warm front which was lifting north across the region.
A National Weather Service survey team found evidence of a weak tornado touching down near the intersection of Glenmina Drive and East Rahn Road. Significant tree damage consisting of snapped and uprooted trees was noted along much of the length of Glenmina Drive bounded by East Rahn Road and Wilmington Pike. In particular, many of the trees fell in a cross-path component to the storm's motion, suggesting the presence of ground-based circulation along or immediately west of Glenmina Drive. Little to no structural damage was noted in this area.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
What forecasters said that day
The local office's own words before the tornado touched down, as it sent them, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service text.
NWS Wilmington, OH wrote its last area forecast discussion before the tornado touched down at Apr 19, 7:49 PM EDT, 3 hours 7 minutes earlier.
Area forecast discussion, Apr 19, 7:49 PM EDT, 3 hours 7 minutes before
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Special weather statement, Apr 19, 7:18 PM EDT, 3 hours 38 minutes before
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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), 12:00Z
9.1 hours after it, 38 km from the path. April 20, 2015.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 69 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -13 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 149 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 659 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 40 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 34 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 111 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 109 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.2
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 6.0 K/km
The surface observations
Dayton (MGY), 14 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (kt) | Pressure (mb) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 00:00 UTC |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
The radar
The Cincinnati radar (KILN), 38 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 02:55 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.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2015 tornado in OhioEvery tornado in Ohio since 1950Warnings in force in Ohio nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of April 19, 2015
21 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| April 19 | 1:55 AM CDT | EF1 | Beauregard Parish, LA | 1.4 | 50 | $15,000 | ||
| April 19 | 7:19 AM CDT | EF1 | Bullock, AL | 1.1 | 150 | |||
| April 19 | 8:22 AM CDT | EF0 | Walton, FL | 0.3 | 25 | |||
| April 19 | 8:25 AM CDT | EF0 | Walton, FL | 0.3 | 25 | $2,000 | ||
| April 19 | 8:38 AM CDT | EF0 | Cherokee, AL | 3.5 | 200 | |||
| April 19 | 8:43 AM CDT | EF1 | Russell, AL | 0.4 | 188 | |||
| April 19 | 8:46 AM CDT | EF1 | Henry, AL | 2.1 | 300 | $1.0 million | ||
| April 19 | 9:17 AM CDT | EF1 | Russell, AL to GA | 7.6 | 425 | $10,000 | ||
| April 19 | 9:47 AM CDT | EF1 | Houston, FL to AL, GA | 38.7 | 500 | $155,000 | ||
| April 19 | 11:38 AM EDT | EF1 | Sumter, GA | 1.5 | 100 | $50,000 | ||
| April 19 | 12:51 PM EDT | EF1 | Leon, FL | 4.6 | 350 | $40,000 | ||
| April 19 | 1:23 PM EDT | EF1 | Laurens, GA | 11.6 | 300 | $75,000 | ||
| April 19 | 2:01 PM EDT | EF0 | Coffee, GA | 3.9 | 60 | $20,000 | ||
| April 19 | 3:42 PM EDT | EF2 | Burke, GA | 4.7 | 200 | |||
| April 19 | 4:10 PM EDT | EF2 | Aiken, SC | 19.5 | 660 | |||
| April 19 | 4:21 PM EDT | EF0 | Edgefield, SC | 2.9 | 50 | $5,000 | ||
| April 19 | 4:30 PM EDT | EF1 | Suwannee, FL | 3.6 | 60 | |||
| April 19 | 5:15 PM EDT | EF1 | Lexington, SC | 9.6 | 200 | |||
| April 19 | 5:20 PM EDT | EF1 | Calhoun, SC | 0.3 | 200 | 2 | $200,000 | |
| April 19 | 6:34 PM EDT | EF0 | Darlington, SC | 0.5 | 75 | $32,000 | ||
| April 19 | 5:35 PM CDT | EF1 | Conway, AR | 4.2 | 300 | $50,000 |
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.