EF1 tornado, South Vienna to Summerford, Ohio, November 5, 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

November 5, 2017

Touchdown

6:16 PM EST (23:16 UTC)

Lifted

6:25 PM EST (23:25 UTC)

On the ground

9 minutes

Path length

6.6 miles (10.7 km)

Path width

200 yards (183 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$125,000

Crop damage

$5,000

Counties

Clark and Madison counties

Touchdown point

39.932, -83.623

Lift-off point

39.926, -83.498

Record number

1711051716-01

Thunderstorms overspread the region during the afternoon and evening hours as a slow moving cold front pushed through the Ohio Valley. The storms produced damaging winds, heavy rainfall and isolated tornadoes. The storms continued into the overnight hours with flooding lingering into the early morning hours.

The tornado first touched down between Ritchie Drive and Interstate 70, where a semi-trailer was overturned. Damage was then observed approaching Ritchie Drive to Ritchie Brothers Auctioneers, which had some roof damage and siding removed. The tornado progressed east-southeast into South Vienna where multiple tree limbs were downed across east North Street and north East Street and some minor structural damage to roofs occurred. ||Damage then continued toward the east-southeast along east Main Street and the tornado strengthened as it crossed Longs Court and headed further east-southeast. Several trees were snapped in half with at least three trees uprooted toward the eastern city limits of South Vienna. ||East of where east Main Street merges with east National Road, a garage was slightly shifted off of its foundation. The tornado continued east-southeast with minor tree damage observed near where Wilson Road and south Houston Pike meet. ||The tornado then crossed into Madison County, about 2 miles east-northeast of Brighton and continued east-southeast before dissipating near Summerford at 1825EST.

This tornado developed in Clark County at 1816EST, about 1 mile north of South Vienna and moved east-southeast, entering Madison County about 2 miles west of Summerford.||Some tree damage occurred on Markley Road, just south of east National Road. Most trees only had limbs downed with two being uprooted. The tornado then strengthened with structural damage occurring just south of east National Road on Roberts Mill Road. A trailer attached to a tractor was tipped on its side and a barn on the property lost the west facing wall, with some of the north and south walls also removed. The east facing wall was completely removed from the structure. Around 30 percent of the roof was removed with pieces of the barn blown into a corn field toward the east. Observed damage from the barn was consistent with EF1 tornadic winds. Farther to the east, corn in a field was downed in different directions before the tornado 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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 17:10 UTC and running to 23:34 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 0.10 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 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 Cincinnati radar (KILN), 61 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:16 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

23 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.