Tornadoes · United States · Ohio · 2018
EF1 tornado, Booth to Pt Place, Ohio, July 31, 2018
From Booth to Pt Place, this EF1 tornado ran 6.8 miles across Lucas County on July 31, 2018, touching down at 10:50 PM EDT and reaching 25 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $150,000 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 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado
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
- EF1
- Date
- July 31, 2018
- Touchdown
- 10:50 PM EDT (02:50 UTC)
- Lifted
- 11:00 PM EDT (03:00 UTC)
- On the ground
- 10 minutes
- Path length
- 6.8 miles (10.9 km)
- Path width
- 25 yards (23 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $150,000
- County
- Lucas County
- Touchdown point
- 41.622, -83.471
- Lift-off point
- 41.720, -83.471
- Record number
- 1807312050-01
What the Weather Service recorded
A weak area of low pressure moved north across Ohio late on July 31st. Some scattered showers and a few thunderstorms developed in advance of the low. A brief tornado was reported over Marion County and a second tornado occurred in Lucas County. Damage from the Marion County tornado was minimal but some homes were damaged in Lucas County.
A tornado touched down near Oregon and tracked due north to near Point Place before dissipating. The nearly seven mile long damage patch was intermittent and consisted of mainly tree damage. Some homes sustained roof damage, mainly from lost shingles. A barn along the damage path did sustain significant wind damage. A video of a SUV being lifted and spun suggests the tornado was at least a high end EF1 in intensity at its peak. A couple other vehicles in the area were displaced. The tornado had a maximum width of around 25 yards.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.
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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 01:00 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.
Detroit, MI (KDTX), 00:00Z
2.8 hours before the tornado, 117 km from the path. August 1, 2018.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 82 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -11 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 557 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 897 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 30 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 16 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 28 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 74 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- -0.0
- Supercell composite
- -0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.8 K/km
Detroit, MI (KDTX), 12:00Z
9.2 hours after it, 117 km from the path. August 1, 2018.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -83448 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 690 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 43 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 10 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- -34 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 55 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.2 K/km
The radar
The Detroit radar (KDTX), 114 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 02:48 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 02:15 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 2 Ene Northwood | Lucas, OH | REPORTS OF DAMAGE AND CARS FLIPPED NEAR BROWN ROAD IN THE OREGON AREA RELAYED FROM LAW ENFORCEMENT DISPATCH. POSSIBLE TORNADO DAMAGE. |
| 02:50 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 3 Nw Harbor View | Lucas, OH | TREES BLOWN DOWN AND POSSIBLE DAMAGE RELAYED FROM LAW ENFORCEMENT DISPATCH. TIME IS ESTIMATED. POSSIBLE TORNADO DAMAGE. |
| 02:50 UTC | TORNADO | 3 S Oregon | Lucas, OH | NWS STORM SURVEY INDICATED A WEAK EF-0 TORNADO TOUCHED DOWN NEAR OREGON OHIO ON THE EVENING OF JULY 31ST AND TRACKED NORTH TO NEAR POINT PLACE BEFORE ISSIPATING. THE 5 MILE INTERMITTENT TRACK PRODUCED MAINLY TREE DAMAGE. |
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 July 31, 2018
3 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
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.