EF0 tornado, Van Wert Circle S Ar to Southworth, Ohio, August 11, 2021

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.

Rating

EF0

Date

August 11, 2021

Touchdown

3:00 PM EDT (19:00 UTC)

Lifted

3:09 PM EDT (19:09 UTC)

On the ground

9 minutes

Path length

4.7 miles (7.5 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Counties

Van Wert and Allen counties

Touchdown point

40.775, -84.412

Lift-off point

40.766, -84.324

Record number

2108111300-01

9 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS IWX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The highest wind the damage implies is 70 mph.

• Tornado crossed from Van Wert County Ohio into Allen County Ohio.
• Eye witness observed tornado north of residence.
• Tornado crossed Ringwald Road., 0.7 south of Middle Point Rd. Damage to crops.
• Start EFU tornado track. 0.8 miles southwest of Middle Point Td, just east of Gamble Rd. Surveyed with drone by Rick McCoy.

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

Convection initiated in Central Illinois and developed into a convective line as it approached Indiana. Thunderstorms developed in the warm sector ahead of the initial line and produced multiple outflow interactions. As the line moved into Ohio, embedded rear inflow jets within the line of storms resulted in several swaths of wind damage and isolated tornadoes.

A drone and ground survey was performed by county Emergency Management. The tornado touched down approximately 2 miles west-southwest of Middle Point, Ohio and tracked northeast for 2.0 miles before lifting. This tornado is classified as unknown on the EF-scale as the tornado did not damage any structures or trees, but did damage croplands.

The tornado touched down in Van Wert county in a corn field on the northeast side of griffin road, just northeast of State Route 116 and Converse-Roselm road. The tornado tracked just south of due east through open fields. The tornado tracked into Allen county, Ohio.||This tornado is classified as unknown as the tornado did not damage any structures or trees, but did damage croplands.

Drone and ground surveys confirmed a EF-U tornado tracked out of Van Wert county into Allen county just north of Fruend Road, crossing Southworth Road just north of Zion Church Road. The tornado then traveled through several fields for an additional 0.3 miles before lifting. ||This tornado is classified as unknown as the tornado did not damage any structures or trees, but did damage croplands.

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 severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 15:50 UTC and running to 19:46 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 Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 16:27 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 Northern Indiana radar (KIWX), 129 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 18:57 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 2021 tornado in OhioEvery tornado in Ohio since 1950Warnings in force in Ohio nowThe forecast where you are

11 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.