Tornadoes · United States · Ohio · 2017
EF1 tornado, Creola to Elk Fork, Ohio, July 22, 2017
From Creola to Elk Fork, this EF1 tornado ran 0.8 miles across Vinton County on July 22, 2017, touching down at 6:48 PM EDT and reaching 230 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $25,000 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 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado
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
- EF1
- Date
- July 22, 2017
- Touchdown
- 6:48 PM EDT (22:48 UTC)
- Lifted
- 6:50 PM EDT (22:50 UTC)
- On the ground
- 2 minutes
- Path length
- 0.8 miles (1.3 km)
- Path width
- 230 yards (210 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $25,000
- County
- Vinton County
- Touchdown point
- 39.302, -82.525
- Lift-off point
- 39.299, -82.511
- Record number
- 1707221648-01
What the Weather Service recorded
A warm front lifted across the middle Ohio River Valley on July 22nd. A wave of low pressure moved along the front during the afternoon, causing increased coverage of showers and thunderstorms. Some of these were strong to severe, and also contained heavy rainfall, with totals of 1 to 3 inches.
A National Weather Service survey team found damage consistent with an EF-1 tornado with estimated winds speeds up to 105 mph. The tornado touched down along Locust Grove Road northwest of McArthur, then paralleled Locust Grove for just under a mile. Hundreds of trees were blown down or snapped. One tree fell on a van. A metal barn had most of its metal roofing ripped off, and thrown about 50 feet away.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
4 minutes of warning. NWS RLX issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:44 UTC, 4 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:30 UTC.
The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 19:54 UTC and running to 02:00 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 16:00 UTC | 20:12 UTC | Flash Flood Watch | RLX |
| 19:54 UTC | 02:00 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Watch | RLX |
| 22:31 UTC | 23:15 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | RLX |
| 22:44 UTC | 23:30 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:59 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
10.8 hours before the tornado, 111 km from the path. July 22, 2017.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 809 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -36 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 1588 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 691 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 27 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 24 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 24 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 45 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.1
- Supercell composite
- 0.8
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.2 K/km
Cncnati-Daytn, OH (KILN), 00:00Z
1.2 hours after it, 111 km from the path. July 23, 2017.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 1096 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -14 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 2336 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1273 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 25 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 12 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 64 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 127 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 7.3 K/km
The radar
The Cincinnati radar (KILN), 113 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:46 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19:48 UTC | FLOOD | Lancaster | Fairfield, OH | SEVERAL ROADS WERE CLOSED IN AND AROUND LANCASTER. |
| 19:48 UTC | LIGHTNING | Lancaster | Fairfield, OH | *** 1 INJ *** PERSON IN A SMALL METAL SHED WAS STRUCK BY LIGHTNING AND TRANSPORTED TO A HOSPITAL. TIME ESTIMATED. |
| 20:43 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Jacksonville | Athens, OH | A FEW TREES REPORTED DOWN IN TOWN. TIME ESTIMATED FROM RADAR. |
| 21:13 UTC | FLASH FLOOD | 2 W Corning | Perry, OH | SHERIFF REPORTS WATER OVER ROAD ST RT 155 AND CONGO RD NEAR CORNING |
| 22:48 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 5 Nnw Mcarthur | Vinton, OH | NUMEROUS TREES AND POWER LINES DOWN ALONG LOCUST GROVE RD. BETWEEN EGGLESTON RD. AND KING RD. TIME ESTIMATED FROM RADAR. |
| 22:48 UTC | TORNADO | 5 Nnw Mcarthur | Vinton, OH | EF-1 TORNADO BEGAN AT 648 PM ALONG LOCUST GROVE ROAD AND THEN MOVED NEARLY PARALLEL TO THAT ROAD. HUNDREDS OF TREES WERE BLOWN DOWN AND SNAPPED. PART OF THE ROOF OF A METAL BARN WAS TORN OFF AND DEPOSITED IN FIELD APPROX |
| 00:00 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 3 Ene Jackson | Jackson, OH | TREE DOWN ALONG RICE RD. TIME ESTIMATED FROM RADAR. |
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 22, 2017
1 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| July 22 | 7:40 PM EDT | EF0 | Lebanon, PA | 0.1 | 25 |
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.