EF1 tornado, Bazetta to Cortland, Ohio, January 8, 2019

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

January 8, 2019

Touchdown

10:20 AM EST (15:20 UTC)

Lifted

10:26 AM EST (15:26 UTC)

On the ground

6 minutes

Path length

4.5 miles (7.2 km)

Path width

75 yards (69 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$250,000

County

Trumbull County

Touchdown point

41.323, -80.815

Lift-off point

41.330, -80.728

Record number

1901080920-01

8 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS CLE, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 97 mph.

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

A warm front moved through northern Ohio on the evening of January 7th, allowing for an unseasonably warm day on January 8th with temperatures reaching the mid 50s by mid-morning. This allowed for thunderstorms to develop over north central Ohio by daybreak on the 8th, which produced widespread hail over the Cleveland and Akron metro areas. These storms continued east into Trumbull County where a rare January tornado formed. This EF-1 tornado damaged portions of Bazetta Township and the city of Cortland and moved over Mosquito Creek Lake. This tornado is the first January tornado in northern Ohio since January 5, 1997, when an F1 tornado hit portions of Wayne County. A second round of showers and thunderstorms developed over the region ahead of a cold front on the afternoon of the 8th. Widespread hail was observed with these thunderstorms, including several reports of hail one inch or greater in diameter. A couple of thunderstorms produced some wind damage in the eastern suburbs of Cleveland.

An EF-1 tornado touched down in the far northeast corner of Champion Township near the intersection of N Park Avenue and Airport Road NW. This tornado continued east along Everett Hull Road in Bazetta Township, where it brought down numerous trees and power lines, including near the Trumbull County Fairgrounds. The tornado emerged over Mosquito Creek Lake and continued moving east returning over land at Hillside Cemetery in Cortland. At the cemetery, a storage shed was destroyed, shingles were blown off a chapel roof, and 36 headstones were overturned. Dozens of trees and bushes were also knocked down and the cemetery did not reopen until mid-February 2019 due to storm damage. From Hillside Cemetery, the tornado continued east into Cortland where damage to buildings, vehicles, and trees was noted. The tornado lifted before it reached High Street (Ohio State Route 5). The tornado was on the ground for about 4.5 miles and had a maximum width of 75 yards.

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 Marginal Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 12:57 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.

The Cleveland radar (KCLE), 91 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 15:20 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 2019 tornado in OhioEvery tornado in Ohio since 1950Warnings in force in Ohio nowThe forecast where you are

1 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.