Tornadoes · United States · Ohio · 2018
EF0 tornado, Newport, Ohio, April 3, 2018
This EF0 tornado ran 0.2 miles across Madison County on April 3, 2018, touching down at 5:14 PM EDT and reaching 50 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $60,000 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 mphthis tornado
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mph
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
- EF0
- Date
- April 3, 2018
- Touchdown
- 5:14 PM EDT (21:14 UTC)
- Lifted
- 5:15 PM EDT (21:15 UTC)
- On the ground
- 1 minutes
- Path length
- 0.2 miles (0.3 km)
- Path width
- 50 yards (46 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $60,000
- County
- Madison County
- Touchdown point
- 39.859, -83.495
- Lift-off point
- 39.860, -83.492
- Record number
- 1804031514-01
What the Weather Service recorded
Severe thunderstorms and tornadoes developed ahead of a strong cold front. Between one to three inches of rain fell across the region.
The tornado appears to have touched down at a farm on Roberts Mill Road, where several barns sustained heavy damage. These barns had complete roof removal and the collapse of exterior walls. Barn roofing and wall material was thrown west- northwest across Roberts Mill Road into the tops of trees of adjacent properties, and strewn across fields on the west side of Roberts Mill Road. The damage is consistent with wind speeds around 85 mph.||Other barn damage observed on State Route 38 south of Newport, Old Xenia Road SW south of London, and on State Route 56 southeast of London, was all determined to be nontornadic with no conclusive components of typical tornado damage.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
32 minutes of warning. NWS ILN issued a tornado warning for this county at 20:42 UTC, 32 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 21:15 UTC.
The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 17:16 UTC and running to 23:33 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11:23 UTC | 06:00 UTC | Flash Flood Watch | ILN |
| 17:16 UTC | 23:33 UTC | Tornado Watch | ILN |
| 20:42 UTC | 21:15 UTC | Tornado Warning | ILN |
| 21:04 UTC | 21:30 UTC | Tornado Warning | ILN |
| 21:17 UTC | 22:45 UTC | Flood Advisory | ILN |
| 21:23 UTC | 21:32 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | ILN |
| 21:23 UTC | 21:37 UTC | Tornado Warning | ILN |
| 23:33 UTC | 01:51 UTC | Tornado Watch | ILN |
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 Enhanced Risk, with a 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 19:33 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
9.2 hours before the tornado, 54 km from the path. April 3, 2018.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -76234 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 542 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 58 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 47 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 358 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 356 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 3.2 K/km
Cncnati-Daytn, OH (KILN), 00:00Z
2.8 hours after it, 54 km from the path. April 4, 2018.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 67 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -109 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 331 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1229 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 61 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 27 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 242 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 401 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.7
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 6.2 K/km
The radar
The Cincinnati radar (KILN), 56 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:11 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20:40 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 3 Ssw Xenia | Greene, OH | TREES AND FENCE DOWN ON KREPPS ROAD. TIME ESTIMATED FROM RADAR. |
| 20:42 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 6 Se Fairborn | Greene, OH | TWO HOUSES WITH STRUCTUAL DAMAGE. BARN DAMAGED. |
| 20:45 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 4 N Xenia | Greene, OH | NUMEROUS TREES DOWN NEAR THE INTERSECTION OF US 68 AND ROUTE 235 |
| 20:45 UTC | TORNADO 1 | 5 Ene Beavercreek | Greene, OH | NWS SURVEY CONFIRMED AND EF1 TORNADO NORTHWEST OF XENIA CONTINUING EAST NORTH OF XENIA AND ENDING JUST SOUTH OF CLIFTON. WIDESPREAD DAMAGE OCCURRED TO AT LEAST 25 PROPERTIES, LARGELY BARN DAMAGE BUT MAJOR ROOF DAMAGE TO |
| 20:56 UTC | TSTM WND GST 53 | Ksgh Springfield Apt | Clark, OH | |
| 20:56 UTC | TORNADO 1 | 3 Wnw Selma | Clark, OH | NWS SURVEY CONFIRMS AN EF1 TORNADO WEST AND NORTH OF SELMA WITH DAMAGE TO A FARM PROPERTY AS WELL AS SCATTERED TREE DAMAGE. |
| 20:57 UTC | TORNADO | 1 Sw South Charleston | Clark, OH | TORNADO REPORTED BY LAW ENFORCEMENT. MOVING EAST. |
| 21:14 UTC | TORNADO 0 | 3 Sw London | Madison, OH | NWS STORM SURVEY CONFIRMS A BRIEF EFO TORNADO IMPACTING SEVERAL BARNS ON ROBERTS MILL ROAD. |
| 21:31 UTC | HAIL 1.5 | 2 S Grove City | Franklin, OH | TIME ESTIMATED FROM RADAR. |
| 21:33 UTC | HAIL 0.75 | Grove City | Franklin, OH | |
| 21:37 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Grove City | Franklin, OH | MULTIPLE UTILITY POLES DOWN |
| 21:37 UTC | TORNADO 1 | 1 Ssw Grove City | Franklin, OH | NWS SURVEY CONFIRMS AN EF1 TORNADO IN GROVE CITY WITH DAMAGE TO ROOFS, GARAGES, AND HIGH TRANSMISSION POWER POLES. |
| 21:38 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 1 Ene Downtown Columbus | Franklin, OH | SIGNIFICANT ROOF AND CHIMNEY DAMAGE. TIME ESTIMATED BASED ON RADAR. |
| 21:43 UTC | TSTM WND GST 47 | Klck Rickenbacker Apt | Franklin, OH | |
| 21:43 UTC | HAIL 1.25 | 2 Ssw Grove City | Franklin, OH | PHOTO VERIFIED. |
| 21:44 UTC | HAIL 0.88 | Groveport | Franklin, OH | |
| 21:47 UTC | HAIL 0.75 | Slate Run Metro Park | Pickaway, OH | |
| 21:47 UTC | HAIL 1 | Groveport | Franklin, OH | |
| 21:49 UTC | TSTM WND GST 49 | Kiln Wilmington Apt | Clinton, OH | 26043KTS |
| 21:50 UTC | HAIL 0.88 | Ese New Holland | Pickaway, OH | |
| 22:19 UTC | FLOOD | West Jefferson | Madison, OH | WATER REPORTED ON SEVERAL ROADWAYS. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2018 tornado in OhioEvery tornado in Ohio since 1950Warnings in force in Ohio nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of April 3, 2018
21 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| April 3 | 4:45 PM EDT | EF1 | Greene, OH | 8.8 | 200 | $500,000 | ||
| April 3 | 4:56 PM EDT | EF1 | Clark, OH | 4.3 | 150 | $85,000 | ||
| April 3 | 4:20 PM CDT | EF2 | Fayette, IL | 18.2 | 100 | |||
| April 3 | 5:37 PM EDT | EF1 | Franklin, OH | 2.6 | 75 | $120,000 | ||
| April 3 | 6:14 PM EDT | EF0 | Perry, OH | 1.3 | 50 | $100,000 | ||
| April 3 | 5:17 PM CDT | EF1 | Williamson, IL | 10.0 | 125 | $250,000 | ||
| April 3 | 6:30 PM EDT | EF0 | Fountain, IN | 2.4 | 75 | $1,000 | ||
| April 3 | 5:39 PM CDT | EF1 | Williamson, IL | 1.9 | 150 | $40,000 | ||
| April 3 | 5:47 PM CDT | EF2 | Saline, IL | 12.3 | 350 | $507,000 | ||
| April 3 | 5:58 PM CDT | EF0 | Stoddard, MO | 4.5 | 100 | $35,000 | ||
| April 3 | 6:06 PM CDT | EF1 | Dunklin, MO | 6.7 | 200 | $1.5 million | ||
| April 3 | 7:11 PM EDT | EF0 | Tippecanoe, IN | 0.6 | 40 | $25,000 | ||
| April 3 | 6:14 PM CDT | EF1 | New Madrid, MO | 2.5 | 125 | $90,000 | ||
| April 3 | 6:29 PM CDT | EF1 | Massac, IL | 10.6 | 75 | $130,000 | ||
| April 3 | 6:38 PM CDT | EF1 | White, IL | 2.3 | 225 | $50,000 | ||
| April 3 | 6:52 PM CDT | EF1 | Grayson, KY | 0.5 | 100 | $300,000 | ||
| April 3 | 6:54 PM CDT | EF2 | Livingston, KY | 4.3 | 300 | $175,000 | ||
| April 3 | 7:09 PM CDT | EF1 | Hickman, KY | 0.3 | 100 | $20,000 | ||
| April 3 | 7:17 PM CDT | EF1 | Hickman, KY | 0.3 | 75 | $30,000 | ||
| April 3 | 7:36 PM CDT | EF1 | Graves, KY | 0.8 | 75 | $20,000 | ||
| April 3 | 9:34 PM EDT | EF1 | Boyle, KY | 0.5 | 100 | $250,000 |
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.