EF1 tornado, Boston Mill to Boston, Ohio, August 6, 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

August 6, 2024

Touchdown

4:20 PM EDT (20:20 UTC)

Lifted

4:25 PM EDT (20:25 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

3.3 miles (5.3 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$194,000

County

Summit County

Touchdown point

41.277, -81.615

Lift-off point

41.256, -81.557

Record number

2408061420-01

38 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS CLE, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 110 mph.

• 2-3 strips of siding pulled off. Minimal
• At least 5 lage trees uprooted.
• Two pines snapped with damage going NW.
• Large tree limbs down through neighborhood.

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

Between about daybreak and nightfall on August 6th, a wavy surface cold front drifted generally southward from northern OH and near the NY/PA line to southern OH and the northern Mid-Atlantic states. This front separated a warm and humid air mass to its north from a warmer and more-humid air mass to its south. A line of multicell thunderstorms persisted southeastward across Mahoning County during the early afternoon and produced localized straight-line convective wind damage. During the late afternoon through early evening, a line of multicell thunderstorms moving eastward across northwest OH merged with a separate line of multicell thunderstorms moving southeastward across western and central Lake Erie. These lines merged to form a more-extensive QLCS that persisted southward and eastward across northern OH. Ahead of these storms, additional multicells and a few transient supercells developed in northeast OH. ||All of these storms occurred amidst weak to moderate MUCAPE and moderate to strong effective bulk shear. Extensive straight-line convective wind damage occurred in northern OH, especially northeast OH, as storms also encountered moderate DCAPE and steep low-level lapse rates. The QLCS also produced five mesovortex-related tornadoes amidst large surface-based ESRH of at least 150 meters squared per second squared and favorable mixed-layer LCL's less than 1k meters AGL.

This tornado had peak intensity of EF1, estimated peak winds of 104 mph, and travelled generally southeastward during its lifespan. The tornado began at a commercial warehouse along Columbia Road in Richfield, where the east end of the roof was removed. Eleven empty semi truck trailers were blown-over in the same general location. As the tornado continued moving southeastward, intermittent tree and power pole damage was noted along Columbia Road. Trees were downed or snapped in different directions. This tornado ended on the north side of the I-80 Cuyahoga Valley Bridge, just west of Riverview Road in Boston, where additional snapped trees were found.

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

11 minutes of warning. NWS CLE issued a tornado warning for this county at 20:09 UTC, 11 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 20:45 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 15:47 UTC and running to 22:26 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 19:55 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), 28 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:22 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

8 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.