Tornadoes · United States · Ohio · 2017
EF0 tornado, Chester, Ohio, July 10, 2017
This EF0 tornado ran 0.4 miles across Meigs County on July 10, 2017, touching down at 7:35 PM EDT and reaching 50 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
- July 10, 2017
- Touchdown
- 7:35 PM EDT (23:35 UTC)
- Lifted
- 7:36 PM EDT (23:36 UTC)
- On the ground
- 1 minutes
- Path length
- 0.4 miles (0.7 km)
- Path width
- 50 yards (46 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $15,000
- County
- Meigs County
- Touchdown point
- 39.077, -81.945
- Lift-off point
- 39.071, -81.942
- Record number
- 1707101735-01
The damage survey
5 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 74 mph.
- Tin shed lifted and blown over the hill Corn blown down in NW direction.
- Corn blown in NW direction.
- tree trunk snapped. top facing west.
- Base rotted. but facing SE
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
Showers and thunderstorms formed along a warm front lifting through the middle Ohio River Valley on the 10th. A turn in the low level winds along the front lead to rotating thunderstorms which produced large hail, heavy rain, damaging winds and one weak tornado.
The NWS Survey team found damage consistent with an EF-0 tornado. The tornado touched down along Pomeroy Pike just to the southwest of Chester. One small tin shed was lifted from its foundation and destroyed. A tree fell onto a home causing slight damage. In addition, several trees were uprooted, and numerous tree limbs were snapped in the same area. Near the end of the path, along Lakewood Road, several additional trees were knocked down.
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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 21:49 UTC | 22:45 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | RLX |
| 22:10 UTC | 22:45 UTC | Tornado Warning | RLX |
| 22:29 UTC | 23:00 UTC | Tornado Warning | RLX |
| 23:30 UTC | 00:17 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | RLX |
| 23:39 UTC | 00:15 UTC | Tornado 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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:54 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
11.6 hours before the tornado, 165 km from the path. July 10, 2017.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 235 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -85 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 285 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 985 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 30 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 31 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 294 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 291 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.7
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.6 K/km
Cncnati-Daytn, OH (KILN), 00:00Z
0.4 hours after it, 165 km from the path. July 11, 2017.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 299 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -35 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 1455 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1494 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 33 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 12 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 73 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 192 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 1.6
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 7.0 K/km
The surface observations
Point Pleasant (3I2), 22 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (kt) | Pressure (mb) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21:35 UTC | 85.5 | 71.2 | 210° 11 kt | 14 | 1014.2 | |
| 21:55 UTC | 87.8 | 71.8 | 200° 10 kt | 15 | 1014.2 | |
| 22:15 UTC | 86 | 70.7 | 210° 9 kt | 17 | 1014.2 | |
| 22:35 UTC | 86.2 | 70.5 | 220° 9 kt | 1014.6 | ||
| 22:55 UTC | 85.3 | 71 | 220° 3 kt | 15 | 1014.9 | |
| 23:15 UTC | 85.5 | 72 | 200° 4 kt | 1014.9 | ||
| 23:35 UTC | 85 | 72.5 | 0° 0 kt | 1015.2 | ||
| 23:55 UTC | 82.8 | 73 | 10° 6 kt | 1015.6 | ||
| 00:15 UTC | 76.6 | 67.5 | 50° 5 kt | 1015.6 | ||
| 00:35 UTC | 76.8 | 67.3 | 90° 4 kt | 1015.6 | ||
| 00:55 UTC | 76 | 67.6 | 0° 0 kt | 1015.6 | ||
| 01:15 UTC | 74.3 | 67.5 | 0° 0 kt | 1015.6 |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
The radar
The Charleston,WV radar (KRLX), 87 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:33 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21:13 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Hemlock | Perry, OH | MULTIPLE TREES FALLEN OR UPROOTED IN SOUTHERN PERRY CO.... VICINITY OF HEMLOCK IN PARTICULAR. TIME ESTIMATED VIA RADAR. |
| 21:25 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Murray City | Hocking, OH | NUMEROUS TREES AND POWER LINES DOWN IN MURRAY CITY. NO POWER OR COMMUNICATIONS. TIME ESTIMATED FROM RADAR. |
| 21:40 UTC | HAIL 1 | 4 Sw Glouster | Athens, OH | COCORAHS REPORT OF ONE INCH HAIL THAT LASTER FOR FIVE MINUTES. |
| 21:50 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 2 W Trimble | Athens, OH | MULTIPLE HOMES WITH ROOF DAMAGE. |
| 22:15 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 6 Sse Stroud Run State | Athens, OH | NWS SURVEY TEAM NOTED SEVERAL TREES DOWN ALONG SAND RIDGE ROAD... MILL SCHOOL ROAD... AND FOSSIL ROCK ROAD. TIME ESTIMATED BY RADAR |
| 22:39 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 6 Ene Coolville | Washington, OH | MULTIPLE TREES AND POWER LINES DOWN IN LITTLE HOCKING REPORTED VIA SOCIAL MEDIA. TIME ESTIMATED BY RADAR. |
| 22:46 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 4 Se Marietta | Washington, OH | SEVERAL TREES UPROOTED IN RENO AREA VIA SOCIAL MEDIA REPORT. TIME ESTIMATED BY RADAR. |
| 23:35 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 1 Sw Chester | Meigs, OH | AN OUT BUILDING WAS RIPPED OFF ITS FOUNDATION AND TOSSED AND SEVERAL TREES WERE SNAPPED |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2017 tornado in OhioEvery tornado in Ohio since 1950Warnings in force in Ohio nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of July 10, 2017
6 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
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.