Tornadoes · United States · Ohio · 2019
EF1 tornado, Carrollton, Ohio, May 25, 2019
This EF1 tornado ran 0.5 miles across Carroll County on May 25, 2019, touching down at 6:42 PM EDT and reaching 50 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $60,000 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 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado
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
- EF1
- Date
- May 25, 2019
- Touchdown
- 6:42 PM EDT (22:42 UTC)
- Lifted
- 6:43 PM EDT (22:43 UTC)
- On the ground
- 1 minutes
- Path length
- 0.5 miles (0.9 km)
- Path width
- 50 yards (46 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $60,000
- County
- Carroll County
- Touchdown point
- 40.580, -81.090
- Lift-off point
- 40.575, -81.076
- Record number
- 1905251642-01
What the Weather Service recorded
A warm front lifted northeast across Pennsylvania, just ahead of a line of convection. Dewpoints in the mid 60s to near 70 spread eastward with time and increased in coverage. Strong heating and destabilization occurred in strong deep layer west/southwestly flow. Low-level lapse rates steepened, and 30-40 knot southwest winds around 700mb increased support for damaging thunderstorm wind gusts. Vertical shear supported rotating updrafts and a few supercell structures.
The National Weather Service in Pittsburgh has confirmed an EF1 tornado in the city of Carrollton on Saturday afternoon May 25th.|||The tornado touched down in a wooded area off of Crest |Street then lifted briefly across Canton Road NW before tearing the top of a |large hardwood tree behind the McDonald's. The worst of the damage |was an overturned single wide mobile home. There were shingles off |several other mobile homes within the mobile home park. A metal shed |was also destroyed. Intermittent touchdowns continued causing minor |damage and shingles off the roofs of a few homes along N Lisbon |Street. Numerous hardwood trees behind the aforementioned street |were snapped mid way up in a ravine.
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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.
The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 20:52 UTC and running to 23:55 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20:31 UTC | 21:15 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | PBZ |
| 20:46 UTC | 21:15 UTC | Tornado Warning | PBZ |
| 20:52 UTC | 23:55 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Watch | PBZ |
| 22:24 UTC | 23:00 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | PBZ |
| 22:55 UTC | 23:16 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | PBZ |
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 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:48 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.
Pittsburgh, PA (KAGC), 12:00Z
10.7 hours before the tornado, 85 km from the path. May 25, 2019.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 124 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -98 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1041 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 45 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 22 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 151 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 156 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.6
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 3.8 K/km
Pittsburgh, PA (KAGC), 00:00Z
1.3 hours after it, 85 km from the path. May 26, 2019.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 952 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -16 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 2663 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1060 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 42 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 31 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 199 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 236 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 1.2
- Supercell composite
- 12.4
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 7.2 K/km
The radar
The Pittsburgh radar (KPBZ), 73 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:41 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20:30 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 2 Nne Massillon | Stark, OH | LARGE TREES DOWN. |
| 20:34 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 3 S Portage Lakes | Summit, OH | VIDEO FROM SOCIAL MEDIA SHOWED DAMAGING WINDS WITH TREES BLOWING AND LARGE BRANCHES SNAPPED NEAR NEW FRANKLIN. ALSO FENCE WAS SMASHED BY LARGE TREES. TIME WAS FROM TIMESTAMP ON VIDEO AND RADAR DATA. |
| 20:38 UTC | HAIL 1.5 | Dalton | Wayne, OH | DELAYED REPORT...PICTURE OF PING PONG SIZE HAIL ON FACEBOOK. |
| 20:40 UTC | TSTM WND GST 72 | 1 Ssw Green | Summit, OH | REPORTED AT AKRON REGIONAL AIRPORT. |
| 20:40 UTC | TSTM WND GST 72 | Akron Fulton Internatio | Summit, OH | CORRECTS PREVIOUS TSTM WND GST REPORT FROM 1 SSW GREEN. REPORTED AT AKRON FULTON INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT. |
| 20:43 UTC | HAIL 1 | 1 N Lakemore | Summit, OH | |
| 20:44 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 2 Sse New Athens | Belmont, OH | TWO TREES DOWN ON ROUTE 9 NEAR BELMONT AND HARRISON COUNTY BORDER. |
| 20:47 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 1 N Port Washington | Tuscarawas, OH | TREES DOWN IN AREA. |
| 21:00 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 3 Wnw Massillon | Stark, OH | A TREE WAS UPROOTED NEAR KENYON AVE AND HWY 172. MULTIPLE TREES AND POWER LINES BLOWN DOWN AROUND MASSILON. |
| 21:04 UTC | HAIL 1.25 | 1 Sw Newport | Tuscarawas, OH | |
| 21:09 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 2 Sw Canton | Stark, OH | LARGE TREE ON A HOUSE. MULTIPLE ROADS BLOCKED IN THE CANTON AREA DUE TO TREES AND LINES DOWN. |
| 21:10 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 1 S Canton | Stark, OH | MULTIPLE TREES AND POWER LINES BLOWN DOWN IN CANTON. TIME WAS ESTIMATED BY RADAR. |
| 21:42 UTC | TORNADO | Carrollton | Carroll, OH | NWS CONFIRMS AN EF1 TORNADO WITH WINDS BETWEEN 90-95 MPH. |
| 22:21 UTC | TSTM WND GST 65 | 4 Ese Louisville | Stark, OH | MEASURED GUST TO 65 MPH. |
| 22:40 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Carrollton | Carroll, OH | SIGNIFICANT DAMAGE TO MOBILE HOME IN BECKY LYNN MOBILE HOME PARK. |
| 22:41 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 2 S Guilford | Columbiana, OH | SIGNLE TREE DOWN ON TRINITY CHURCH ROAD. |
| 22:41 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Carrollton | Carroll, OH | DAMAGE AT THE BECKY-LYN MOBILE HOME PARK |
| 22:42 UTC | TORNADO | Carrollton | Carroll, OH | NWS CONFIRMS AN EF1 TORNADO WITH WINDS BETWEEN 90-95 MPH. |
| 00:06 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Uniontown | Belmont, OH | TREE DOWN |
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 May 25, 2019
21 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 25 | 4:59 PM CDT | Unrated | Hockley, TX | 1.1 | 30 | |||
| May 25 | 5:39 PM CDT | EF2 | Hale, TX | 1.7 | 100 | $250,000 | ||
| May 25 | 6:08 PM CDT | Unrated | Hale, TX | 4.6 | 100 | |||
| May 25 | 7:04 PM CDT | Unrated | Greer, OK | 0.3 | 30 | |||
| May 25 | 7:14 PM CDT | Unrated | Beckham, OK | 0.2 | 50 | |||
| May 25 | 8:27 PM EDT | EF1 | Indiana, PA | 5.1 | 35 | |||
| May 25 | 8:32 PM EDT | EF0 | Indiana, PA | 0.1 | 20 | |||
| May 25 | 7:40 PM CDT | Unrated | Hall, TX | 0.0 | 30 | |||
| May 25 | 10:28 PM CDT | EF3 | Canadian, OK | 2.2 | 75 | 2 | 29 | $400,000 |
| May 25 | 10:46 PM CDT | EF0 | Oklahoma, OK | 0.9 | 50 | $20,000 | ||
| May 25 | 10:49 PM CDT | EF0 | Oklahoma, OK | 0.7 | 50 | $20,000 | ||
| May 25 | 10:53 PM CDT | EF0 | Oklahoma, OK | 0.5 | 30 | $10,000 | ||
| May 25 | 10:56 PM CDT | EF0 | Cleveland, OK | 0.7 | 30 | $10,000 | ||
| May 25 | 10:57 PM CDT | EF0 | Oklahoma, OK | 0.2 | 30 | $2,000 | ||
| May 25 | 11:14 PM CDT | EF1 | Tazewell, IL | 1.1 | 200 | |||
| May 25 | 11:19 PM CDT | EF1 | Tazewell, IL | 0.7 | 150 | |||
| May 25 | 12:04 AM CDT | EF1 | Creek, OK | 2.6 | 200 | $40,000 | ||
| May 25 | 12:14 AM CDT | EF1 | Creek, OK | 10.7 | 1,000 | $250,000 | ||
| May 25 | 12:21 AM CDT | EF1 | Creek, OK | 12.5 | 1,400 | $760,000 | ||
| May 25 | 12:27 AM CDT | EF1 | Tulsa, OK | 12.3 | 2,200 | $1.1 million | ||
| May 25 | 12:51 AM CDT | EF0 | Tulsa, OK | 1.8 | 400 | $175,000 |
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.