EF0 tornado, Middlebury to Wetsel, Ohio, August 24, 2016

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

August 24, 2016

Touchdown

6:41 PM EDT (22:41 UTC)

Lifted

6:45 PM EDT (22:45 UTC)

On the ground

4 minutes

Path length

1.5 miles (2.4 km)

Path width

25 yards (23 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Van Wert County

Touchdown point

40.888, -84.670

Lift-off point

40.907, -84.658

Record number

1608241641-01

15 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS IWX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 104 mph.

• debris from unknown location
• several pines trees snapped or uprooted.
• cinder block. no anchoring. damage on s side.
• debris as well as some limbs

Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.

A unique combination of extreme low level moisture and a passing upper level disturbance provided the trigger for severe storms. Even though the clouds remained in place for most of the day and it did not get very warm, there was just enough instability to allow storms to develop. There was also a high degree of shear in the lowest levels of the atmosphere, which allowed multiple tornadoes to form. No other forms of severe weather occurred during the event.

An NWS survey, combined with eyewitness reports and an aerial survey by Emergency Management indicated a funnel cloud was skipping along this path and occasionally touching down. First touchdown was in a corn field just west of a residence on Convoy Heller Road. Several trees were uprooted and snapped off while some roof and siding damage occurred to a home. A large two-story garage/barn had mud thrown onto the eastern side of the building. A window was broken inward while a vent on the building was blown outward. The tornado continued skipping northeast hitting a large barn on US highway 224. The roof of this building was blown off to the north and witnessed by a homeowner. The tornado continued skipping northeast, knocking down trees including a large pine tree in a cemetery. Several small grave stones were also moved. Maximum winds were estimated at around 100 mph.

This tornado was a secondary spin up tornado from same mesocyclone as the earlier EF-1 Van Wert County tornado. Damage found from aerial survey by Emergency Manager of mainly crop damage to corn and beans.

Damage found from aerial survey by Emergency Management of mainly crop damage to corn and beans. Tornado skipped once in middle of this path. Maximum winds were estimated at 65 mph.

Damage found from aerial survey by Emergency Manager of mainly crop damage to corn and beans.

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

17 minutes of warning. NWS IWX issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:24 UTC, 17 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 21:39 UTC and running to 01:59 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 19:56 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.

Fort Wayne (FWA), 46 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Northern Indiana radar (KIWX), 101 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:38 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 2016 tornado in OhioEvery tornado in Ohio since 1950Warnings in force in Ohio nowThe forecast where you are

21 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.