Tornadoes · United States · Ohio · 2019

EF0 tornado, New Westville, Ohio, June 15, 2019

This EF0 tornado ran 1.7 miles across Preble County on June 15, 2019, touching down at 9:56 PM EDT and reaching 35 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $40,000 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.

  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.

The record

Rating
EF0
Date
June 15, 2019
Touchdown
9:56 PM EDT (01:56 UTC)
Lifted
9:59 PM EDT (01:59 UTC)
On the ground
3 minutes
Path length
1.7 miles (2.7 km)
Path width
35 yards (32 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$40,000
County
Preble County
Touchdown point
39.758, -84.806
Lift-off point
39.772, -84.780
Record number
1906151956-01

What the Weather Service recorded

Severe thunderstorms developed on a stalled frontal boundary draped across the region.

The tornado first touched down on Weist Road, east of Route 227. Numerous trees up to one foot in diameter were knocked down. The most significant damage was to a large tree limb which was blown down and punctured the roof of a house. In addition, two large barn doors were blown in and a side barn door was ripped off and blown to the north-northwest about 20 yards. A few windows and sections of the barn were also damaged.||The tornado appears to have moved northeast across a field, then produced additional damage to trees at a residence on Wolverton Road, just south of Paddock Road. The tornado dissipated shortly afterwards.

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.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 00:40 UTC and running to 03:08 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
18:00 UTC15:12 UTCFlash Flood WatchILN
00:40 UTC03:08 UTCTornado WatchILN
01:43 UTC02:15 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningILN

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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 01:46 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

1.9 hours before the tornado, 93 km from the path. June 16, 2019.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Cncnati-Daytn, OH at 00:00Z on 2019-06-16Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 172 joules per kilogram, CIN -36, lifted condensation level 1021 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Cncnati-Daytn, OH at 00:00Z on 2019-06-16The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 290 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 48 knots.19395878Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
172 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-36 J/kg
Surface CAPE
423 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1021 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
48 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
30 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
290 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
374 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.3
Supercell composite
1.5
0-3 km lapse rate
5.3 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Cincinnati radar (KILN), 92 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:56 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)ReportWhereCountyRemark
01:56 UTCTORNADO 02 E Krid Richmond AptPreble, OHNWS STORM SURVEY CONFIRMS AN EF0 TORNADO IN RURAL WESTERN PREBLE COUNTY, OHIO WITH AN ESTIMATED PATH LENGTH OF 1.7 MILES AND WIDTH OF 35 YARDS.
02:44 UTCTSTM WND DMGColerain TownshipHamilton, OHWIRES DOWN ON SNOWFLAKE LANE
04:00 UTCHEAVY RAIN 1.831 Wsw UnionMontgomery, OHCOCORAHS STATION OH-MY-34 UNION 1.0 WSW.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2019 tornado in OhioEvery tornado in Ohio since 1950Warnings in force in Ohio nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of June 15, 2019

28 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
June 152:21 PM CDTEF0Hardin, IA0.220$1,000
June 152:43 PM CDTEF0Macoupin, IL1.830
June 152:53 PM CDTEF0Stutsman, ND0.430
June 154:22 PM CDTEF0Holt, MO0.715
June 154:29 PM CDTEF0Wells, ND0.530
June 155:20 PM CDTUnratedCastro, TX0.010
June 156:29 PM EDTEF1Owen, IN8.1200$100,000
June 156:48 PM EDTEF2Monroe, IN3.7400$110,000
June 156:56 PM EDTEF2Greene, IN3.5400$250,000
June 156:05 PM CDTEF0Deuel, SD0.110
June 157:26 PM EDTEF1Marion, IN1.9200$1.1 million
June 157:37 PM EDTEF0Marion, IN0.9100$30,000
June 157:46 PM EDTEF0Brown, IN0.650$1,000
June 158:48 PM EDTEF2Rush, IN14.5200$275,000
June 157:54 PM CDTUnratedDes Moines, IA0.840
June 159:02 PM EDTEF0Fayette, IN0.120$50,000
June 158:20 PM CDTEF2Des Moines, IA1.8260
June 158:24 PM CDTEF2Des Moines, IA1.3300
June 158:38 PM CDTEF1Mercer, IL0.740
June 158:40 PM CDTEF1Dewey, OK3.1100$4,000
June 159:42 PM EDTEF1Union, IN2.135$35,000
June 159:51 PM EDTEF0Wayne, IN1.61002$225,000
June 159:06 PM CDTEF2Custer, OK6.3500$80,000
June 159:16 PM CDTEF0Custer, OK1.3300$2,000
June 159:42 PM CDTEF1Custer, OK1.5400$50,000
June 1510:19 PM CDTEF1Tazewell, IL2.4200$60,000
June 1511:36 PM CDTEF1McLean, IL1.950$40,000
June 1511:51 PM CDTEF1Lincoln, OK5.250$60,000

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.