EF1 tornado, Blairsville to Amelia Sky Hills Arp, Ohio, March 1, 2017

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

March 1, 2017

Touchdown

3:38 AM EST (08:38 UTC)

Lifted

3:47 AM EST (08:47 UTC)

On the ground

9 minutes

Path length

6.4 miles (10.3 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$400,000

County

Clermont County

Touchdown point

39.026, -84.296

Lift-off point

39.029, -84.177

Record number

1703010238-01

An unseasonably warm and moist air mass was in place across the region during the morning hours of March 1st. Showers and thunderstorms developed across the Ohio Valley during the early morning hours as a strong low pressure system lifted northeast into the Great Lakes region. These storms produced heavy rain, large hail and several tornadoes. A squall line then moved through the region during the mid morning hours ahead of an approaching cold front. These storms resulted in damaging winds and additional heavy rain.

The first sign of tornadic damage was observed on Locust Corner Road in Pierce Township near the Pierce Township Nature Area where several trees were snapped. A power pole was also snapped on the corner of Locust Corner Road and Wagner Road.||Damage continued on Locust Corner Road near the Pierce Township Park. Damage was mostly in the form of snapped trees and downed tree branches. Several evergreen trees were also uprooted.||Further east, beginning at the intersection of Lewis Road and Locust Lake Road, tree damage continued and was more significant. Structural damage was also observed at the 1300 block of Locust Lake Road. The most significant damage occurred to a home which had its roof completely lifted off and displaced into the backyard. Damage here was estimated to be EF1 in nature, with maximum winds near 110 MPH. Other homes further east on Locust Lake Road also suffered damage, including shingles ripped off and several instances of siding partially or completely removed from multiple sides of several structures. Multiple trees also fell onto one of the homes, resulting in roof damage.||To the east of Locust Lake Road, any structural damage was more sporadic and primarily consisted of shingles torn from a few homes on Maple Avenue and South Klein Avenue. A few trees were snapped as far east as Amelia Park Drive and Mount Holly Road.

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

2 minutes of warning. NWS ILN issued a tornado warning for this county at 08:36 UTC, 2 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 09:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 04:30 UTC and running to 10:57 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 Enhanced Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 05:42 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.

Batavia (I69), 6 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Cincinnati radar (KILN), 56 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 08:39 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 2017 tornado in OhioEvery tornado in Ohio since 1950Warnings in force in Ohio nowThe forecast where you are

38 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.