EF1 tornado, Hanging Rock to Kitchen, Ohio, April 2, 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 2, 2024

Touchdown

10:26 AM EDT (14:26 UTC)

Lifted

10:27 AM EDT (14:27 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

1.1 miles (1.8 km)

Path width

200 yards (183 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$50,000

County

Lawrence County

Touchdown point

38.599, -82.505

Lift-off point

38.605, -82.487

Record number

2404020826-01

50 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 110 mph.

• Significant loss of roofing noted at the Laidback Bar and Grille. Significant tree damage with several travel trailers rolled over and destroyed.
• Drone snapshot shows trees on edges of track with convergence.
• This damage marks the beginning of the path of wind damage that had embedded tornadic signatures.
• New scoreboard blown onto bleachers

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

Multiple rounds of showers and thunderstorms moved across parts of Ohio at the start of the month of April. An intense squall line raced through portions of southeast Ohio on the late morning of April 2nd, which spawned four tornadoes and caused numerous other locations to observe straight-line wind damage. Additional severe thunderstorms occurred late in the afternoon and into the evening of April 2nd, producing additional tornadoes and wind damage centered within southern and eastern Ohio. ||The multiple rounds of rain produced numerous instances of flash flooding around Ohio. Widespread rainfall amounts of 2 to 4 inches had fallen across southern and eastern Ohio, with localized amounts near 6 inches observed. Runoff from this rainfall, coupled with heavy rain occurring in West Virginia and Pennsylvania, caused moderate to major flooding along the Ohio River. Moderate flooding was observed first along the lower Muskingum River, with both McConnellsville and Beverly having surpassed their respective moderate flood stage. Drainage into the Ohio River eventually sent the river into flood on April 4th from north to south, with subsequent crests occurring into April 5th. Locations along the upper reaches experienced moderate flooding. In addition, Marietta exceeded major flood stage. Overall impacts were significant with numerous roads and structures observing flooding along the West Virginia side of the river.

A tornado that began in Greenup County, Kentucky finally crossed the Ohio River and impacted a campground on the Ohio side at Hanging Rock. More significant damage was noted here as several travel trailers were overturned, the roof was blown off of the Laidback Bar, and significant tree damage was noted in the adjacent camping area. Drone footage showed campers tossed in a counter-clockwise motion and some convergence in the tree damage. A salt storage dome was also destroyed in this area, causing significant injury to an employee.||The tornado continued to track eastward, damaging a few homes and damaging the roof and ballfields at Ironton Middle School. The tornado weakened but continued to cause some sporadic damage to homes all the way to the Storms Creek Flood Wall.

An EF1 tornado began near Aid on Oak Ridge Road and traveled northeastward through mostly pastureland, knocking down a few trees on the north edge of the path and where it crossed Symmes Creek. The tornado continued northeast, blowing the roof off of two homes and another structure, as well as rolled a travel trailer near where it crossed State Route 141. The last noted damage was some tin panels that were blown upward on a barn roof shortly after the tornado crossed State Route 141. Some minor damage, not likely associated with the tornado occurred at the Symmes Valley High School.||An EMS employee stationed at the nearby Lawrence County EMS Station 5 witnessed the tornado as it traveled across the field in front of the station.

An EF1 tornado with maximum winds of 105 miles per hour began in the vicinity of Timber Ridge Lake in a rural area of northeast Lawrence County. There was a concentrated swath of significant hardwood tree damage observed along Scottown-Lecta Road just southeast of Timber Ridge Lake, with several large hardwoods either snapped or uprooted. This damage was consistent with a converging tornadic damage signature. ||Due to the rural area with which the tornado crossed and lack of a road network within the theoretical path, where the tornado first touched down and eventually lifted is unknown. In addition, this tornado may be an extension of the one which was observed in Aid.

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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 14:20 UTC and running to 17:00 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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.15 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 12:32 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.

Ashland (DWU), 22 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The Charleston,WV radar (KRLX), 75 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 14:27 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

68 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 69 of them

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.