EF1 tornado, Langsville, 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

9:07 AM EST (14:07 UTC)

Lifted

9:08 AM EST (14:08 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.1 miles (0.1 km)

Path width

300 yards (274 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$80,000

County

Meigs County

Touchdown point

39.058, -82.185

Lift-off point

39.058, -82.185

Record number

1703010807-01

16 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS RLX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 107 mph.

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

A strong cold front moved across the Ohio River Valley during the afternoon of March 1. Strong storms had developed near this cold front well to the west the day before, and raced through the middle Ohio River Valley early on the 1st as a severe squall line producing widespread damaging wind gusts. Heavy rainfall from training storms also produced flash flooding as 1-2 inches of rain fell over several hours. The flash flooding combined with the wet ground eventually lead to river and stream flooding during the afternoon of the 1st through the 2nd. ||The Muskingum river at Beverly, spilled over its banks on the evening of the 1st, and remained in flood stage for several hours. The river had a crest of 29.3 feet, just above the flood stage of 29 feet. This caused minor flooding of several homes, roads and lowlands next to the river.||The Hocking River at Athens rose out of its banks just after noon on the 2nd, and remained above flood stage through mid morning on the 3rd. The river crested at just over 21 feet, about a foot over flood stage of 20 feet. This resulted in minor flooding of lowlands and campgrounds along the river.||Other smaller creeks and streams, such as Duck Creek, the Little Muskingum, Raccoon Creek, Shade Creek and Symmes Creek all rose out of their banks. The Raccoon Creek was the last to return below bankfull, early on the 4th. According to the Ohio DOT, various roads were closed due to the flooding across Southeast Ohio.

A National Weather Service storm survey team found damage consistent with a EF-1 tornado near Langsville, OH. Multiple trees were snapped. A small shed was ripped from its foundation and blown several feet away. A porch was torn from a house, lifted over the house and deposited on the other side. The house also had some shingle damage. A large barn suffered significant damage. The metal roof was torn off and thrown up to 200 yards away. It appeared that two side walls of the barn collapsed after loss of the roof. Wind were estimated to be 100 mph.

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

9 minutes of warning. NWS RLX issued a tornado warning for this county at 13:58 UTC, 9 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 14:30 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 11:48 UTC and running to 14:55 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 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 12:51 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.

The Charleston,WV radar (KRLX), 92 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 14:08 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.