Tornadoes · United States · Ohio · 2015

EF0 tornado, New Carlisle Arpt, Ohio, April 2, 2015

This EF0 tornado ran 0.1 miles across Clark County on April 2, 2015, touching down at 9:31 PM EDT and reaching 120 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $1,000 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.

  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.

The record

Rating
EF0
Date
April 2, 2015
Touchdown
9:31 PM EDT (01:31 UTC)
Lifted
9:32 PM EDT (01:32 UTC)
On the ground
1 minutes
Path length
0.1 miles (0.2 km)
Path width
120 yards (110 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$1,000
County
Clark County
Touchdown point
39.975, -84.036
Lift-off point
39.975, -84.033
Record number
1504021931-01

What the Weather Service recorded

Thunderstorms developed as an upper level disturbance interacted with a cold front entering the region.

An EF0 tornado damaged trees and an outbuilding along Addison-New Carlisle Road.

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

The warnings

0 minutes of warning. NWS ILN issued a tornado warning for this county at 01:31 UTC, 0 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:45 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
01:31 UTC01:45 UTCTornado WarningILN

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 Marginal Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 00:49 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

1.5 hours before the tornado, 64 km from the path. April 3, 2015.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Cncnati-Daytn, OH at 00:00Z on 2015-04-03Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 323 joules per kilogram, CIN -30, lifted condensation level 906 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Cncnati-Daytn, OH at 00:00Z on 2015-04-03The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 269 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 50 knots.19395878Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
323 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-30 J/kg
Surface CAPE
466 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
906 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
50 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
30 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
269 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
278 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.5
Supercell composite
3.6
0-3 km lapse rate
5.9 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Cncnati-Daytn, OH (KILN), 12:00Z

10.5 hours after it, 64 km from the path. April 3, 2015.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Cncnati-Daytn, OH at 12:00Z on 2015-04-03Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 5 joules per kilogram, CIN -82, lifted condensation level 840 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Cncnati-Daytn, OH at 12:00Z on 2015-04-03The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 50 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 53 knots.1939587897Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
5 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-82 J/kg
Surface CAPE
39 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
840 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
53 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
9 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
50 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
-55 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.6 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Cincinnati radar (KILN), 64 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:31 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)ReportWhereCountyRemark
01:31 UTCTORNADO 03 N New CarlisleClark, OHAN EF0 TORNADO DAMAGED TREES AND AN OUTBUILDING ALONG ADDISON - NEW CARLISLE ROAD.

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

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 2, 2015

12 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
April 25:50 PM MDTEF0Cheyenne, CO1.025
April 27:24 PM CDTEF0Labette, KS0.050
April 27:40 PM CDTEF0Labette, KS0.975
April 27:58 PM CDTEF0Cherokee, KS2.5100
April 28:10 PM CDTEF0Labette, KS0.050$5,000
April 28:33 PM CDTEF0Barton, MO2.6100$5,000
April 29:09 PM CDTEF0Jasper, MO0.175$10,000
April 29:59 PM CDTEF1Craig, OK12.38001$275,000
April 211:25 PM CDTEF1McDonald, MO12.4100$20,000
April 212:26 AM CDTEF1Douglas, MO0.9100$15,000
April 212:40 AM CDTEF1Boone, AR6.9300$500,000
April 212:52 AM CDTEF2Howell, MO7.6440$600,000

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.