Tornadoes · United States · Ohio · 2015
EF0 tornado, Bartlett, Ohio, June 20, 2015
This EF0 tornado ran 0.1 miles across Washington County on June 20, 2015, touching down at 2:12 PM EDT and reaching 77 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 20, 2015
- Touchdown
- 2:12 PM EDT (18:12 UTC)
- Lifted
- 2:13 PM EDT (18:13 UTC)
- On the ground
- 1 minutes
- Path length
- 0.1 miles (0.2 km)
- Path width
- 77 yards (70 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $15,000
- County
- Washington County
- Touchdown point
- 39.407, -81.829
- Lift-off point
- 39.409, -81.828
- Record number
- 1506201212-01
The damage survey
11 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS RLX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 85 mph.
- V-hull boat thrown in tree and crumpled.
- Distinct flattening of tall grass with antecedent swirls.
Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.
What the Weather Service recorded
The remnants of what was Tropical Storm Bill moved east, through northern Kentucky during the morning hours, reaching near Portsmouth during the mid afternoon hours.||Showers were more persistent from northern Vinton County and the Hocking River Valley on north. Lines of thunderstorms formed ahead of the low pressure center during the early afternoon and moved north. One brief tornado was confirmed in Washington County on the mesoscale comma head of one short convective line.||Rain totals of 1.5 to 2.5 were common over grounds that had become wet during the past week. Minor flash flooding occurred.
A brief EF0 tornado occurred off of Tullis Road, southwest of Bartlett. The estimated strongest wind gust was around 85 mph.||Several trees were uprooted and numerous large branches were snapped. One house and an outbuilding were damaged, mainly to the roof and siding. Also, a small aluminum boat was thrown from the edge of the pond, 140 yards and wrapped around a tree.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 12:00 UTC | 02:30 UTC | Flash Flood Watch | RLX |
| 20:15 UTC | 02:15 UTC | Flash Flood Warning | RLX |
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 16:34 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), 12:00Z
6.2 hours before the tornado, 169 km from the path. June 20, 2015.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 76 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -44 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 122 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 692 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 32 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 27 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 147 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 123 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.0 K/km
Cncnati-Daytn, OH (KILN), 00:00Z
5.8 hours after it, 169 km from the path. June 21, 2015.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 104 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -228 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 1189 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 818 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 33 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 16 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 96 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 165 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.3
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.7 K/km
The surface observations
Parkersburg (PKB), 34 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (kt) | Pressure (mb) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16:53 UTC | 79 | 70 | 90° 7 kt | 1011.5 | ||
| 17:53 UTC | 82 | 71 | 110° 8 kt | 1009.8 | ||
| 18:23 UTC | 81 | 70 | 1010.5 | VCTS | ||
| 18:30 UTC | 220° 14 kt | +TSRA | ||||
| 18:33 UTC | 70 | 68 | 220° 9 kt | 1012.2 | +TSRA BR | |
| 18:53 UTC | 70 | 68 | 250° 3 kt | 1012.2 | -TSRA BR | |
| 19:04 UTC | 70 | 68 | 220° 3 kt | 1010.5 | -TSRA | |
| 19:13 UTC | 70 | 68 | 210° 3 kt | 1010.5 | -RA BR | |
| 19:41 UTC | 71 | 69 | 90° 6 kt | 1009.8 | -RA | |
| 19:53 UTC | 71 | 69 | 90° 4 kt | 1009.8 |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
The radar
The Charleston,WV radar (KRLX), 122 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 18:09 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17:50 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Shawnee | Perry, OH | TREES DOWN...ROOF DAMAGE...AND CHIMNEY DAMAGE. |
| 18:15 UTC | TORNADO | 1 Sw Bartlett | Washington, OH | EF0 TORNADO CONFIRMED. MAX WIND SPEEDS 85 MPH. PATH LENGTH 218 YARDS AND PATH WIDTH 77 YARDS. |
| 18:25 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 1 Sw Bartlett | Washington, OH | REPORTED DAMAGE TO A HOME ON TULLIS RD NEAR WAYNE NATIONAL FOREST. PER WESLEY OHIO FIRE CHIEF. TIME EST FROM RADAR |
| 19:04 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 2 Se Carlisle | Noble, OH | THREE TREES DOWN |
| 19:10 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 1 Sw Bartlett | Washington, OH | REPORTED DAMAGE TO A HOME ON TULLIS ROAD NEAR WAYNE NATIONAL FOREST PER THE WESLEY OH FIRE CHIEF. |
| 21:00 UTC | FLOOD | 1 Ene Mcarthur | Vinton, OH | CULVERT WASHED OUT AT INTERSECTION OF MORGAN ROAD AND BARLEON 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 June 20, 2015
10 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 20 | 4:10 PM CDT | EF0 | Towner, ND | 0.1 | 50 | |||
| June 20 | 6:09 PM CDT | EF1 | Monroe, IA | 3.6 | 175 | $80,000 | ||
| June 20 | 7:27 PM EDT | EF0 | Prince William, VA | 2.1 | 100 | $50,000 | ||
| June 20 | 7:39 PM EDT | EF0 | Frederick, MD | 1.5 | 75 | $5,000 | ||
| June 20 | 7:01 PM CDT | EF1 | Washington, IA | 1.4 | 75 | $50,000 | ||
| June 20 | 7:02 PM CDT | EF0 | Griggs, ND | 1.5 | 50 | |||
| June 20 | 8:12 PM EDT | EF0 | Caroline, VA | 1.3 | 50 | $25,000 | ||
| June 20 | 7:18 PM CDT | EF1 | Henry, IA | 3.5 | 75 | 2 | $100,000 | |
| June 20 | 7:32 PM CDT | EF1 | Des Moines, IA | 2.9 | 50 | $300,000 | ||
| June 20 | 7:34 PM CDT | EF1 | Lee, IA | 4.4 | 50 |
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.