EF1 tornado, Windham to Mahoning, Ohio, April 17, 2024

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 17, 2024

Touchdown

6:45 PM EDT (22:45 UTC)

Lifted

6:51 PM EDT (22:51 UTC)

On the ground

6 minutes

Path length

4.0 miles (6.4 km)

Path width

65 yards (59 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$500,000

County

Portage County

Touchdown point

41.232, -81.081

Lift-off point

41.267, -81.020

Record number

2404171645-01

At the surface, an occluded low drifted from northeastern WI to the central Upper Peninsula of MI during the early afternoon through early evening of the 17th. Simultaneously, the low's attendant warm front drifted eastward across central Lake Erie and far-western PA, and the low's attendant cold front swept eastward from near the northwest OH/northeast IN border and central IN to near the OH/PA border, which caused the warm sector to shrink with time. Scattered multicell thunderstorms and a few supercell thunderstorms developed along and ahead of the cold front, and persisted generally eastward across northern OH as the storms encountered weak to moderate MUCAPE and DCAPE, respectively, and moderate to strong effective bulk shear. This environment allowed storms to produce damaging hail and straight-line convective wind gusts, respectively. Three tornadoes also occurred amidst favorably-low mixed layer lifting condensation levels less than 1500 meters AGL and favorably-strong, surface-based effective storm-relative helicity.

An EF1 tornado with estimated peak winds of 110 mph occurred in Windham. The tornado began near the intersection of OH Route 303 and Stanley Road. The tornado|produced wind damage of EF0 to low end EF1 intensity as it downed trees and damaged roofs of several buildings. The tornado continued northeastward toward Bryant Road, where the tornado caused significant damage to a large garage and moved a shed several yards, in addition to downing several trees. The tornado crossed|the Ohio Turnpike, impacted three tractor trailers, and closed the highway for some time. North of the Ohio Turnpike and off Bryant Road, the tornado heavily damaged a mobile home, flipped over a car and boat, and caused other minor structural damage,|indicative of EF1 damage. The tornado continued northeast toward Parkman Road, Crestview Drive, Wisteria Street, and Geneva Drive. This area experienced the greatest damage from the tornado, indicative of the 110 mph rating. Several homes were heavily damaged with loss of roofing material, siding, and blown out windows. Two homes were shifted off their foundations. Numerous large trees were downed onto some homes. The tornado continued northeastward and crossed OH Route 82, west of Horn Road, where several trees were snapped. The tornado continued producing tree|damage to Frazier Road before dissipating prior to reaching Silica Sand Road.

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

3 minutes of warning. NWS CLE issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:42 UTC, 3 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 22:57 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 19:48 UTC and running to 00:17 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, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:58 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), 70 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:43 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 2024 tornado in OhioEvery tornado in Ohio since 1950Warnings in force in Ohio nowThe forecast where you are

4 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.