Tornadoes · United States · Ohio · 2018
EF0 tornado, Plsnt Hll Bshre Arpt, Ohio, May 30, 2018
This EF0 tornado ran 0.1 miles across Miami County on May 30, 2018, touching down at 8:46 PM EDT and reaching 30 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $5,000 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
- May 30, 2018
- Touchdown
- 8:46 PM EDT (00:46 UTC)
- Lifted
- 8:48 PM EDT (00:48 UTC)
- On the ground
- 2 minutes
- Path length
- 0.1 miles (0.2 km)
- Path width
- 30 yards (27 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $5,000
- County
- Miami County
- Touchdown point
- 40.039, -84.304
- Lift-off point
- 40.040, -84.302
- Record number
- 1805301846-01
What the Weather Service recorded
Scattered thunderstorms developed across the region as the remnants of Sub Tropical Storm Alberto lifted north through the Ohio Valley.
A tornado briefly touched down just south of Ohio Route 718, destroying an outbuilding and causing damage to several trees. The outbuilding was completely destroyed with part of the structure landing on an adjacent garage. Parts of the tin roofing were strewn into adjacent properties and across Ohio Route 718. A photograph taken near the damaged location showed a funnel cloud extending nearly to the ground and eyewitness reports from an adjacent residence confirmed a brief touchdown with debris being lofted into the air.
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.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 19:38 UTC | 19:58 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | 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 Marginal Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 20:18 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), 00:00Z
0.8 hours before the tornado, 80 km from the path. May 31, 2018.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 164 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -19 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 1956 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 987 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 21 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 24 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 136 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 124 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 1.4
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 6.4 K/km
Cncnati-Daytn, OH (KILN), 12:00Z
11.2 hours after it, 80 km from the path. May 31, 2018.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 614 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -39 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 696 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 712 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 23 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 19 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 85 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 108 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 1.3
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.4 K/km
The radar
The Cincinnati radar (KILN), 80 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:46 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 00:46 UTC | TORNADO 0 | 5 W Troy | Miami, OH | BRIEF, WEAK TORNADO DESTROYED AN OUTBUILDING, LIFTING DEBRIS ONTO AN ADJACENT GARAGE. SOME LARGE LIMBS BROKEN OFF AS WELL. ESTIMATED WIND SPEED 65 MPH. |
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 May 30, 2018
4 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.