EF0 tornado, Mt Washington, Ohio, March 1, 2017

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

March 1, 2017

Touchdown

7:03 AM EST (12:03 UTC)

Lifted

7:04 AM EST (12:04 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

1.1 miles (1.7 km)

Path width

350 yards (320 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$250,000

County

Hamilton County

Touchdown point

39.070, -84.392

Lift-off point

39.067, -84.373

Record number

1703010603-01

3 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS ILN, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The highest wind the damage implies is 98 mph.

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

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 tornado first touched down between 4 Mile Road and Phillips Road in a heavily wooded ravine. Numerous trees were knocked down in the ravine. As the tornado moved east toward Phillips Road, several more trees were knocked down, one of which fell on a home and damaged the roof.||On Phillips Road, numerous homes were damaged by trees or large limbs that were tossed onto roofs. One of the more heavily damaged houses had a garage wall knocked down. Additionally, the house suffered roof and siding damage. A neighboring house lost 20 percent of the backside of its roof.||Between Phillips Road and Nimitz Lane, more trees were knocked down. Several of the trees fell onto homes on Nimitz Lane, causing roof damage. A very large tree was knocked down across Nimitz Lane, completely blocking the road.||The tornado lifted briefly, but touched down again on Birchdale Court, knocking trees down onto several homes and causing additional damage.||Once again the tornado lifted, and then touched down near the intersection of Burney Lane and Wetheridge Drive. A large property on Burney Lane had numerous trees knocked over or snapped. As the tornado moved eastward along Wetheridge Lane, more trees were knocked down, with several causing roof damage to houses. The path continued down to Chesterton Way, before the tornado finally lifted.

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

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 10:57 UTC and running to 12:43 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.

Cincinnat/Lunken (LUK), 5 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Cincinnati radar (KILN), 62 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 12:03 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.