Tornadoes · United States · Ohio · 2017
EF0 tornado, Chattanooga to Rockford, Ohio, July 10, 2017
From Chattanooga to Rockford, this EF0 tornado ran 6.3 miles across Mercer County on July 10, 2017, touching down at 8:14 PM EDT and reaching 150 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $10,000 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
- 8:14 PM EDT (00:14 UTC)
- Lifted
- 8:31 PM EDT (00:31 UTC)
- On the ground
- 17 minutes
- Path length
- 6.3 miles (10.2 km)
- Path width
- 150 yards (137 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $10,000
- County
- Mercer County
- Touchdown point
- 40.713, -84.795
- Lift-off point
- 40.697, -84.675
- Record number
- 1707101814-01
What the Weather Service recorded
A series of upper level disturbances moving across the region brought several rounds of severe storms through the day.
The tornado touched down near Winkler Road just west of State Route 49. As the tornado moved east, damage was observed at a residence on the southwest corner of Winkler Road and Short Road. The tornado damaged the roof of a home and several nearby trees were also damaged.||As the tornado continued east, it caused damage to the roof of a house west of Wabash Road, along with damage to trees on the property.||The tornado moved east-southeast across Hill Road, crossing Winkler Road and damaging crops and trees along its path. Rotational scarring was noted in the corn fields adjacent to Winkler Road and Jordan Road.||The tornado crossed Jordan Road, moving east-southeast to near the intersection of Lee Road and Erastus-Durbin Road. At a property on the southeast corner of this intersection, one outbuilding was destroyed, with its debris scattered into the field to the east.||The tornado damaged another area of trees along Township Line Road and then continued east-southeast into open fields north of Rockford West Road before it dissipated.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 00:12 UTC | 01:00 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | ILN |
| 00:26 UTC | 01:00 UTC | Tornado Warning | ILN |
| 00:58 UTC | 01:13 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | ILN |
| 02:19 UTC | 02:54 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | ILN |
| 03:13 UTC | 05:15 UTC | Flood Advisory | ILN |
| 07:30 UTC | 22:23 UTC | Flash Flood Watch | ILN |
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 Slight Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. 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), 00:00Z
0.2 hours before the tornado, 163 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
Cncnati-Daytn, OH (KILN), 12:00Z
11.8 hours after it, 163 km from the path. July 11, 2017.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 1049 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -100 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 1146 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 979 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 22 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 28 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 127 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 143 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 2.8
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.2 K/km
The surface observations
Wapakoneta (AXV), 44 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (kt) | Pressure (mb) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22:31 UTC | 80.6 | 66.2 | 230° 10 kt | 1012.5 | ||
| 22:51 UTC | 80.6 | 64.4 | 230° 8 kt | 1012.5 | ||
| 23:12 UTC | 80.6 | 64.4 | 220° 6 kt | 1012.5 | ||
| 23:31 UTC | 80.6 | 64.4 | 220° 5 kt | 1012.5 | ||
| 23:51 UTC | 78.8 | 68 | 230° 4 kt | 1012.5 | ||
| 00:12 UTC | 78.8 | 68 | 200° 5 kt | 1012.2 | ||
| 00:31 UTC | 78.8 | 68 | 190° 6 kt | 1011.9 | ||
| 00:51 UTC | 78.8 | 68 | 190° 7 kt | 1012.2 | ||
| 01:11 UTC | 78.8 | 66.2 | 180° 7 kt | 1011.9 | VCTS | |
| 01:31 UTC | 78.8 | 66.2 | 180° 11 kt | 1011.9 | TS | |
| 01:52 UTC | 78.8 | 64.4 | 190° 10 kt | 16 | 1012.2 | TS |
| 02:11 UTC | 78.8 | 64.4 | 190° 9 kt | 1012.2 | VCTS |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
The radar
The Northern Indiana radar (KIWX), 109 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:14 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 00:20 UTC | TORNADO 0 | 5 Wnw Rockford | Mercer, OH | A TORNADO NORTHWEST OF ROCKFORD DAMAGED CROPS, TREES, AND ONE OUTBUILDING. |
| 00:33 UTC | FUNNEL CLOUD | 2 W Rockford | Mercer, OH | FUNNEL CLOUD REPORTED WEST SIDE OF ROCKFORD. |
| 02:12 UTC | FLOOD | Jonestown | Van Wert, OH | REPORTED 5.22 OF RAIN. SEVERAL VEHICLES STRANDED IN HIGH WATER. |
| 02:12 UTC | LIGHTNING | Jonestown | Van Wert, OH | REPORT OF A HOUSE FIRE DUE TO LIGHTNING. |
| 02:12 UTC | HEAVY RAIN 5.22 | Jonestown | Van Wert, OH | STORM TOTAL. |
| 02:31 UTC | HAIL 2.5 | Mendon | Mercer, OH | |
| 02:45 UTC | HAIL 1 | Spencerville | Allen, OH | DELAYED REPORT. HAIL IMAGES RELAYED VIA LIMA MEDIA. PICTURES LOOK SLIGHTLY LARGER THAN QUARTER SIZED. |
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.