EF1 tornado, Wilkesville, Ohio, April 8, 2020

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

April 8, 2020

Touchdown

12:33 AM EDT (04:33 UTC)

Lifted

12:34 AM EDT (04:34 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.3 miles (0.4 km)

Path width

125 yards (114 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$200,000

County

Vinton County

Touchdown point

39.079, -82.356

Lift-off point

39.082, -82.354

Record number

2004082233-01

6 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS RLX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 90 mph.

• Last of the debris field and estimated end of tornado track.
• First evidence of tree damage and estimated beginning of tornado track.

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

A strong low pressure system crossing through the state inflicted multiple rounds of severe weather across southeast Ohio. Starting on the 7th, a warm front draped across the Ohio Valley was the primary focus for convection to develop that evening. These storms produced large hail across portions of Ohio. A brief lull in storms during the day of the 8th primed the atmosphere once more for severe thunderstorms to arise ahead of a cold front which passed through late that night. During which time, another round of thunderstorm wind damage and hail occurred in the state late that evening and into the early morning hours of the 9th. An EF1 tornado briefly touched down in Wilkesville shortly after midnight on the 9th, inflicting damage to several mobile homes.

A brief tornado touchdown occurred along Ohio 124 1.5 miles WNW of Wilkesville. A new double-wide mobile home was shifted off the block foundation and turned in a westerly direction. Another nearby mobile home was blown a few feet off of its foundation in a southerly direction. Clear rotation was also evident in the direction several uprooted trees were laying and in debris scattered across the property.

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.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 03:01 UTC and running to 05:34 UTC.

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 01:04 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 Charleston,WV radar (KRLX), 102 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 04:32 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 2020 tornado in OhioEvery tornado in Ohio since 1950Warnings in force in Ohio nowThe forecast where you are

24 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.