EF0 tornado, Bruno, Ohio, April 3, 2018

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

April 3, 2018

Touchdown

6:14 PM EDT (22:14 UTC)

Lifted

6:17 PM EDT (22:17 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

1.3 miles (2.0 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$100,000

County

Perry County

Touchdown point

39.845, -82.439

Lift-off point

39.844, -82.416

Record number

1804031614-01

7 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS RLX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 80 mph.

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

A warm front lifted across the middle Ohio River Valley on the morning of the 3rd. This brought a round of showers and thunderstorms. Showers lingered across central and eastern Ohio through much of the day with the warm front in the vicinity. A strong cold front then pushed through in the evening with strong to severe thunderstorms. Periods of heavy rain, first with the warm front, and then again with the cold front led to flooding.

An EF0 tornado skipped along a roughly 1.25 mile path. Damage indicators were sparse, however, three pull-behind campers were tossed around at the beginning of the path near Ridenour Road in a convergent pattern and tree damage at the end of the path also indicated a convergent pattern. A single wide mobile home, just off Ridenour Road, was shifted 3 to 4 feet off its foundation. Another trailer had roof damage and debris blown through the windows on the west facing side, and another outbuilding further east along the path had the roof ripped off. Several trees along the path were either uprooted or snapped.

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

4 minutes of warning. NWS RLX issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:10 UTC, 4 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 22:30 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 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 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.

Newark (VTA), 20 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Cincinnati radar (KILN), 128 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:15 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 2018 tornado in OhioEvery tornado in Ohio since 1950Warnings in force in Ohio nowThe forecast where you are

21 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.