EF1 tornado, Country Acres to Zimmerman, Ohio, May 26, 2015

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

May 26, 2015

Touchdown

5:16 PM EDT (21:16 UTC)

Lifted

5:17 PM EDT (21:17 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.6 miles (0.9 km)

Path width

70 yards (64 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

2

Property damage

$750,000

County

Greene County

Touchdown point

39.697, -84.103

Lift-off point

39.703, -84.095

Record number

1505261516-01

Scattered thunderstorms developed as an upper level disturbance moved through the Ohio Valley.

The tornado initially touched down at the Greene Crossing Shopping Center on Indian Ripple Road. At least 5 cars were lifted and rolled, with 2 injuries occurring in 2 of the vehicles that were rolled. As many as 22 cars in the parking lot at Greene Crossing Shopping Center were damaged with most of the damage being blown out windows.||Additional roof, window and awning damage occurred to a restaurant building as well as to the strip mall within the shopping center. The most significant damage was shattered windows and a partial collapse of a brick roof facade at Fitworks, along with a rooftop HVAC unit being pushed off of the roof. The damage was consistent with 100 to 105 mph winds. ||Damage continued into the subdivision to the northeast of the Greene Crossing Shopping Center where numerous trees were downed and several homes suffered roof damage. While there was additional storm damage in the subdivisions east of Interstate 675, the damage there appeared to be non-tornadic.

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 18:25 UTC and running to 22:47 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. The outlook in force was issued at 19:32 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.

The Cincinnati radar (KILN), 39 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:17 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 2015 tornado in OhioEvery tornado in Ohio since 1950Warnings in force in Ohio nowThe forecast where you are

12 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.