EF1 tornado, Hanford to Bexley, Ohio, September 26, 2018

1. EF065 to 85 mph

   Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

2. EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado

   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

EF1

Date

September 26, 2018

Touchdown

5:53 AM EDT (09:53 UTC)

Lifted

5:57 AM EDT (09:57 UTC)

On the ground

4 minutes

Path length

3.7 miles (6.0 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$750,000

County

Franklin County

Touchdown point

39.956, -82.970

Lift-off point

39.971, -82.903

Record number

1809260353-01

21 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS ILN, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 93 mph.

• Trunks snapped and tree uprooted. Multiple trees damaged along Ashburton, Mayfair and Hampton.
• cinderblock garage roof removed and collapse of walls
• Large branch had wedged into door frame of pickup truck. Truck was reported as partially lifted/dropped with force having damaged passenger tires.
• Several Trees uprooted or trunks snapped

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

Showers and thunderstorms moved east across the region ahead of a fast moving cold front.

Damage evident of a weak tornado began in the Olde Towne neighborhood of Columbus. There were numerous large tree branches down or tree trunks snapped, along with a pickup truck that was briefly partially lifted off the ground. The pickup truck suffered damage to both passenger side tires as it was forced back down to the pavement. In the same area of Olde Towne, there was damage to power poles. Damage in this area was consistent with an EF0 strength tornado. Further down the damage path, several areas of tree damage occurred in the Bexley area. ||The most significant tornado damage occurred in the Mayfair neighborhood near East Broad Street and South James Road, and where the wind speeds are estimated to be the highest. Several homes in this neighborhood sustained roof, siding and shingle damage. There were numerous large trees uprooted or snapped, causing significant damage to homes, garages and vehicles. Additionally, 2 cinder block garages had their roofs completely lifted off, with 1 or 2 block walls completely collapsed. It was this damage that was consistent with wind speeds of about 90 mph. Damage in this neighborhood was consistent with low end EF1 tornado winds.||There was no evidence nor reports of damage further to the northeast of this area, so from here it appears the tornado lifted and dissipated.

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

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 Storm Prediction Center had this point in a General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 05:50 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.

Columbus (CMH), 6 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Cincinnati radar (KILN), 97 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 09:54 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

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.