EF0 tornado, Bardwell to Union Plains, Ohio, May 21, 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

May 21, 2018

Touchdown

10:04 PM EDT (02:04 UTC)

Lifted

10:07 PM EDT (02:07 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

1.9 miles (3.0 km)

Path width

75 yards (69 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$10,000

County

Brown County

Touchdown point

39.053, -83.928

Lift-off point

39.060, -83.895

Record number

1805212004-01

8 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS ILN, 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.

Thunderstorms developed during the late afternoon and evening hours in a warm and unstable air mass that was in place across the region.

The tornado initially touched down on the west side of U.S. Highway 68 near Donley Road where a large tree was snapped and lying across the road. The tornado crossed U.S. Highway 68 causing sporadic tree damage on the east side of the highway. A grove of trees several hundred yards from the road suffered more substantial tree damage with numerous trees either uprooted or snapped. The tornado continued northeast to Hillcrest Road, where a grove of trees on the west side of the road showed sporadic snapped and uprooted trees. A residence on the east side of the road had minor roof damage, a chimney blown off, and several uprooted and snapped trees. The tornado began lifting further to the northeast in the vicinity of Crawford-Day Road, where several trees and large limbs were snapped.

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

0 minutes of warning. NWS ILN issued a tornado warning for this county at 02:04 UTC, 0 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 02:14 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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 00:42 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.

Batavia (I69), 26 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Cincinnati radar (KILN), 41 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 02:03 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

4 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.