EF0 tornado, Peru to Fitchville, Ohio, June 15, 2023

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

June 15, 2023

Touchdown

8:01 PM EDT (00:01 UTC)

Lifted

8:02 PM EDT (00:02 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.7 miles (1.1 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$5,000

County

Huron County

Touchdown point

41.116, -82.661

Lift-off point

41.111, -82.651

Record number

2306151801-01

68 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS CLE, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 123 mph.

• Large snapped tree is west. Cornfield blown SW
• Numerous trees snapped an uprooted. House to the north of Snyder Rd had roof damage. Metal was wrapped around a mailbox. A piece of slate was lodged in the trunk of a tree.
• More trees snapped back here, solid steel flag pole bent over completely.
• Numerous trees snapped and uprotted, with debris everywhere. Several projectiles lodged into the ground.

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

A cold front moved into northwest Ohio the evening of Thursday, June 15. A weak surface low pressure developed along this front over southern Michigan earlier in the day and moved southeast across the western tip of Lake Erie during the evening. A warm front extended southeast of this low pressure along the western Lake Erie shoreline and then down towards central Ohio. Thunderstorms erupted along the cold front near Toledo just before 6:00 PM and moved southeast towards east-central Ohio over the coming hours. Enhanced vertical wind shear associated with the low pressure and warm front allowed storms to rotate amidst an unstable environment. A particularly intense supercell (rotating thunderstorm) developed near the Ohio/Michigan border just north of Toledo and tracked across parts of Lucas, Ottawa, Sandusky, Erie, Huron, Seneca, Richland, Ashland, and Wayne Counties. This supercell was responsible for nine tornadoes and numerous instances of large hail, with hail to at least the size of tennis balls reported near Toledo and multiple reports of hail to golf ball sized or larger as the storm continued southeast. Heavy rainfall from this supercell also produced flash flooding across Huron County. Storms gradually congealed into a line that produced some hail and straight-line convective wind damage into east central Ohio.

An EF0 tornado with estimated peak winds of 80 mph impacted portions of Peru Township. The tornado began at the intersection of Hettle and Terry Roads, where a pine tree was uprooted and several large tree branches were snapped. This tornado dissipated after crossing Peru Center Road.

An EF0 tornado with estimated peak winds of 85 mph tracked southeastward from near the intersection of OH-61 and Hanville Corners Road toward the intersection of OH-162 and Walnut Road. The tornado snapped a pine tree and damaged several other trees during its brief lifespan just west of North Fairfield.

This tornado began in vicinity of New State Road and Townline Road 131, where it downed a deteriorated barn. The tornado continued southeast toward the village of North Fairfield, intensified, lifted a large portion of a roof off an outbuilding, and downed several trees on Hanville Corners Road. A power pole was separated from power lines with additional tree damage. The tornado entered North Fairfield and caused widespread tree and power line damage in the village. Some roofing material was lifted off residences and some trees fell onto homes. A large sign was ripped off the facade of a building and several light and power poles were leaning along Main Street (OH-162). Damage in the village was at the EF0 to EF1 level and this is where the tornado was widest along its path.||The tornado continued southeastward across Penn Road toward Old State Road and Olive Road, where a large area of snapped and shredded trees fell and additional damage occurred to several barns and outbuildings. The greatest damage occurred near the intersection of Old State Road and Townline Road 12, where the tornado's estimated peak winds reached 110 mph. Several large trees were snapped, a mobile home was damaged heavily, and three power poles were snapped at their bases. As the tornado persisted farther southeast toward Boughtonville Road, several silos were damaged heavily. Near Edwards Road and Boughtonville Road, several roofs were displaced from outbuildings and the second floor of a residence was damaged heavily. The tornado continued toward Greenwich Milan Townline Road, where a large swath of trees were snapped. Minor tree and power pole damage occurred near the intersection of US-224 and Greenwich Milan Townline Road, west of the village of Greenwich, just before the tornado dissipated.

An EF1 tornado with estimated peak winds of 105 mph exhibited deviant west-to-east motion in the Greenwich area. The tornado started in vicinity of Townline Road 12 and Edwards Road, where several softwood trees were snapped. The tornado struck a business, where it damaged an office, several silos, an outbuilding, and some equipment. The tornado followed Townline Road 12 east to Greenwich Milan Townline Road, where additional tree damage occurred along with a clear damage path in a field. Additional trees were downed along Omega Road before the tornado dissipated near OH-13, northeast of Greenwich.

From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.

23 minutes of warning. NWS CLE issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:38 UTC, 23 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:15 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 23:17 UTC and running to 02:37 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 19:57 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 Cleveland radar (KCLE), 74 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:00 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 2023 tornado in OhioEvery tornado in Ohio since 1950Warnings in force in Ohio nowThe forecast where you are

31 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.