Tornadoes · United States · Ohio · 2024
EF1 tornado, Mt Cory to Jenera, Ohio, March 14, 2024
From Mt Cory to Jenera, this EF1 tornado ran 3.3 miles across Hancock County on March 14, 2024, touching down at 7:30 PM EDT and reaching 100 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $75,000 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 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado
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
- EF1
- Date
- March 14, 2024
- Touchdown
- 7:30 PM EDT (23:30 UTC)
- Lifted
- 7:34 PM EDT (23:34 UTC)
- On the ground
- 4 minutes
- Path length
- 3.3 miles (5.4 km)
- Path width
- 100 yards (91 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $75,000
- County
- Hancock County
- Touchdown point
- 40.876, -83.809
- Lift-off point
- 40.882, -83.745
- Record number
- 2403141730-01
What the Weather Service recorded
A cold front drifted south-southeastward from near the northern shore of Lake Erie and southern Lower MI to near the southern shore of Lake Erie and far-northwestern OH during the evening of the 14th as a warm and relatively-moist sector preceded the front in northern OH. Multicell and supercell thunderstorms occurred along and ahead of the front, and persisted generally eastward. Severe hail, some large, and isolated straight-line convective wind damage occurred as the storms encountered weak to moderate MUCAPE, relatively-steep midlevel lapse rates near 7C/km, and moderate to strong effective bulk shear. Three separate supercells spawned a tornado amidst favorably-strong, surface-based effective storm relative helicity and favorably-low mixed layer lifting condensation levels less than 1500 meters AGL. The training supercell thunderstorms with heavy rainfall produced isolated flash flooding as well.
An EF1 tornado with estimated peak winds of 105 mph tracked east-northeastward for about three-miles in Orange Township. The tornado began near the intersection of Township Roads 29 and 56 and ended near Township Road 60, just south of Township Road 32. The tornado damaged several homes and outbuildings during its lifespan.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
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 21:15 UTC and running to 00:43 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 21:15 UTC | 00:43 UTC | Tornado Watch | CLE |
| 22:39 UTC | 23:15 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | CLE |
| 22:45 UTC | 23:15 UTC | Tornado Warning | CLE |
| 23:19 UTC | 00:00 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | CLE |
| 23:46 UTC | 00:10 UTC | Tornado Warning | CLE |
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 Slight Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:37 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
11.5 hours before the tornado, 161 km from the path. March 14, 2024.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 20 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -147 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1277 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 34 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 23 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 114 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 135 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.3 K/km
Cncnati-Daytn, OH (KILN), 00:00Z
0.5 hours after it, 161 km from the path. March 15, 2024.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 966 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -27 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 1639 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1092 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 61 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 9 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 37 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 113 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.4
- Supercell composite
- 2.2
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 7.3 K/km
The radar
The Cincinnati radar (KILN), 162 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:29 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22:49 UTC | HAIL 1 | Ottoville | Putnam, OH | |
| 22:53 UTC | FUNNEL CLOUD | 2 W Findlay | Hancock, OH | Funnel cloud observed by trained spotter at OH-12 and I-75 before it became rain-wrapped. |
| 23:03 UTC | TORNADO | 4 Nnw Mount Blanchard | Hancock, OH | Law enforcement observed a tornado at OH-37 and Township Road 168. |
| 23:03 UTC | TORNADO | 4 Nnw Mount Blanchard | Hancock, OH | Law enforcement observed a tornado looking north from OH-37 and Township Road 168. |
| 23:09 UTC | TORNADO | 4 Ne Vanlue | Hancock, OH | Based on several social media photos and videos, eyewitness reports, and law enforcement reports, a brief and intermittent tornado occurred from the extreme eastern part of Hancock County to the western part of Seneca Co |
| 23:18 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Columbus Grove | Putnam, OH | Semi blown over and several road signs downed. |
| 23:22 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 5 Se New Riegel | Wyandot, OH | Utility pole down and hit a vehicle. |
| 23:25 UTC | FUNNEL CLOUD | 4 Ese New Riegel | Seneca, OH | Numerous observations of lowering funnel cloud. |
| 23:25 UTC | HAIL 1 | 1 Wsw Tiffin | Seneca, OH | |
| 23:29 UTC | TORNADO | 4 Nne Botkins | Auglaize, OH | *** 3 FATAL, 27 INJ *** EF3 tornado with winds to 155 MPH confirmed in Auglaize County OH and Logan County OH. This tornado began south of Wapakoneta and is believed to have ended east of Bellefontaine. |
| 23:30 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 3 Sw Jenera | Hancock, OH | Corrects previous tstm wnd dmg report from 3 SW Jenera. Emergency management reported several structures with significant damage, including roofs blown off of homes and partial collapse of barns along Township Road 29. S |
| 23:30 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 3 Wsw Jenera | Hancock, OH | Corrects previous tstm wnd dmg report from 3 WSW Jenera. Report of damage to houses near Township Road 29 and Township Road 12. Report corrected for time based on radar. |
| 23:30 UTC | TORNADO | 4 Sse Mount Cory | Hancock, OH | An EF-1 tornado with maximum estimated winds of 100 MPH developed in Orange Township in southwestern Hancock County. The tornado tracked 3.3 miles towards the east, lifting in Van Buren Township. The tornado damaged 5 ho |
| 23:31 UTC | HAIL 1 | Rawson | Hancock, OH | Report from mPING: Quarter (1.00 in.). |
| 23:49 UTC | TORNADO | Lakeview | Logan, OH | Multiple buildings destoryed in the Lakeview area. Time estimated. |
| 23:50 UTC | HAIL 1.75 | 1 N Jackson Center | Shelby, OH | |
| 23:52 UTC | HAIL 2.75 | Jackson Center | Shelby, OH | |
| 23:56 UTC | HAIL 1.75 | Jackson Center | Shelby, OH | |
| 23:56 UTC | HAIL 2 | 2 E Jackson Center | Logan, OH | Time estimated from radar. |
| 23:57 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 3 Wsw Jenera | Hancock, OH | Report of damage to houses near Township Road 29 and Township Road 12. |
| 00:13 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 3 Sw Jenera | Hancock, OH | Emergency management reported several structures with significant damage, including roofs blown off of homes and partial collapse of barns along Township Road 29. Several large trees down as well. |
| 00:15 UTC | HAIL 1.25 | Rushsylvania | Logan, OH |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2024 tornado in OhioEvery tornado in Ohio since 1950Warnings in force in Ohio nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of March 14, 2024
24 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| March 14 | 4:36 AM CDT | EF1 | Warren, IL | 1.1 | 150 | |||
| March 14 | 7:28 AM CDT | EF0 | Jersey, IL | 8.7 | 100 | |||
| March 14 | 7:44 AM CDT | EF0 | Jersey, IL | 3.9 | 75 | |||
| March 14 | 7:46 AM CDT | EF0 | Jersey, IL | 2.8 | 200 | |||
| March 14 | 7:46 AM CDT | EF0 | Saint Louis, MO | 0.1 | 50 | |||
| March 14 | 7:58 AM CDT | EF0 | Macoupin, IL | 2.1 | 100 | |||
| March 14 | 1:58 PM EDT | EF2 | Jefferson, IN to KY | 18.0 | 500 | 2 | $320,000 | |
| March 14 | 1:44 PM CDT | EF0 | McIntosh, OK | 2.7 | 350 | $10,000 | ||
| March 14 | 3:40 PM CDT | EF0 | Christian, MO | 1.0 | 50 | $15,000 | ||
| March 14 | 5:40 PM CDT | EF1 | Mercer, IN to OH | 9.3 | 450 | $250,000 | ||
| March 14 | 7:00 PM EDT | EF1 | Mercer, OH | 15.9 | 1,050 | $750,000 | ||
| March 14 | 7:09 PM EDT | Unrated | Hancock, OH | 1.3 | 50 | |||
| March 14 | 7:29 PM EDT | EF3 | Indian Lake tornado, OH | 31.3 | 1,000 | 3 | 27 | $6.0 million |
| March 14 | 7:34 PM EDT | EF2 | Delaware, IN | 4.5 | 175 | $4.0 million | ||
| March 14 | 6:50 PM CDT | EF3 | Winchester tornado, Indiana and Ohio | 41.3 | 700 | 1 | 39 | $26 million |
| March 14 | 7:54 PM EDT | EF2 | Crawford, OH | 10.3 | 250 | $450,000 | ||
| March 14 | 6:59 PM CDT | EF0 | Collin, TX | 0.2 | 15 | $25,000 | ||
| March 14 | 8:24 PM EDT | EF2 | Union, OH | 19.5 | 600 | $550,000 | ||
| March 14 | 7:32 PM CDT | EF1 | Jefferson, IL | 0.5 | 150 | $700,000 | ||
| March 14 | 7:57 PM CDT | EF2 | Garland, AR | 8.5 | 1,000 | |||
| March 14 | 9:01 PM EDT | EF1 | Delaware, OH | 35.4 | 600 | $1.5 million | ||
| March 14 | 8:11 PM CDT | EF1 | Wayne, IL | 2.8 | 75 | $120,000 | ||
| March 14 | 10:32 PM CDT | EF0 | Breckinridge, KY | 0.5 | 20 | |||
| March 14 | 11:00 PM CDT | EF1 | McCurtain, OK | 0.5 | 200 | $50,000 |
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.