Tornadoes · United States · Ohio · 2022
EF0 tornado, Middleboro to Clarksville, Ohio, March 23, 2022
From Middleboro to Clarksville, this EF0 tornado ran 1.7 miles across Warren and Clinton counties on March 23, 2022, touching down at 3:42 PM EDT and reaching 50 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $12,000 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 mphthis tornado
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mph
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
- EF0
- Date
- March 23, 2022
- Touchdown
- 3:42 PM EDT (19:42 UTC)
- Lifted
- 3:45 PM EDT (19:45 UTC)
- On the ground
- 3 minutes
- Path length
- 1.7 miles (2.8 km)
- Path width
- 50 yards (46 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $12,000
- Counties
- Warren and Clinton counties
- Touchdown point
- 39.392, -84.006
- Lift-off point
- 39.410, -83.990
- Record number
- 2203231342-01
The damage survey
4 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS ILN, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 81 mph.
Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.
What the Weather Service recorded
Scattered thunderstorms developed through the afternoon hours ahead of a low pressure system moving through the Ohio Valley.
The tornado initially touched down along Todd's Fork Creek south of Highway 350, where a barn collapsed. The tornado moved along Todd's Fork Creek, uprooting and snapping trees along its path and flipping a pop-up camper. The tornado crossed Highway 350 and continued along Todd's Fork Creek where a home experienced minor damage, including doors that were blown in. The tornado then crossed into Clinton County at Springhill Road and lifted in a wooded area on the east side of Springhill Road at 1445 EST.
The tornado initially touched down along Todd's Fork Creek south of Highway 350 in Warren County at 1442 EST. The tornado crossed into Clinton County at Springhill Road and quickly lifted in a wooded area on the east side of Springhill Road where some minor tree damage occurred.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
4 minutes of warning. NWS ILN issued a tornado warning for this county at 19:38 UTC, 4 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 19:46 UTC.
The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 17:53 UTC and running to 22:29 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 17:53 UTC | 22:29 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Watch | ILN |
| 19:38 UTC | 19:46 UTC | Tornado Warning | ILN |
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 Marginal Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 16:38 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), 12:00Z
7.7 hours before the tornado, 17 km from the path. March 23, 2022.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 12 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -293 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1412 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 98 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 44 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 496 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 504 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.1
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.9 K/km
Cncnati-Daytn, OH (KILN), 00:00Z
4.3 hours after it, 17 km from the path. March 24, 2022.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 425 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -5 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 412 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1309 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 108 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 28 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 109 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 156 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.2
- Supercell composite
- 3.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 7.7 K/km
The radar
The Cincinnati radar (KILN), 15 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 19:44 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19:20 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 5 W Englewood | Montgomery, OH | SEVERAL LARGE LIMBS DOWN IN THE 7000 BLOCK OF BROOKVILLE SALEM ROAD. |
| 19:42 UTC | TORNADO 0 | 1 Sw Clarksville | Warren, OH | NWS STORM SURVEY CONFIRMED A BRIEF AND WEAK TORNADO ALONG TODDS FORK CREEK NEAR CLARKSVILLE, OHIO. TREES WERE SNAPPED AND UPROOTED,WITH MINOR STRUCTURAL DAMAGE TO A BARN AND HOUSE. |
| 19:43 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 1 W Clarksville | Warren, OH | POSSIBLE TORNADIC DAMAGE. NUMEROUS TREES DOWNED. A STRUCTURE DAMAGED ALONG WITH A CAR AND CAMPER THAT WERE FLIPPED OVER. |
| 21:56 UTC | HAIL 0.75 | Vandalia | Montgomery, OH | LIGHTLY COVERING THE GROUND. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2022 tornado in OhioEvery tornado in Ohio since 1950Warnings in force in Ohio nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of March 23, 2022
7 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| March 23 | 2:53 PM EDT | EF0 | Echols, GA | 0.5 | 25 | |||
| March 23 | 5:31 PM EDT | Unrated | Van Wert, OH | 0.3 | 20 | |||
| March 23 | 6:11 PM EDT | EF0 | Huron, OH | 0.8 | 100 | $5,000 | ||
| March 23 | 8:56 PM EDT | EF2 | Pickens, SC | 6.3 | 440 | $250,000 | ||
| March 23 | 9:29 PM EDT | EF0 | Pickens, SC | 0.1 | 20 | |||
| March 23 | 9:45 PM EDT | EF2 | Carroll, VA | 1.9 | 125 | $400,000 | ||
| March 23 | 10:59 PM EDT | EF1 | Alexander, NC | 6.2 | 150 | $25,000 |
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.