EF0 tornado, Purity to Hickman, Ohio, May 7, 2024

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

May 7, 2024

Touchdown

11:49 PM EDT (03:49 UTC)

Lifted

11:53 PM EDT (03:53 UTC)

On the ground

4 minutes

Path length

3.0 miles (4.9 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$50,000

County

Licking County

Touchdown point

40.170, -82.343

Lift-off point

40.166, -82.285

Record number

2405072149-01

26 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS ILN and NWS PBZ, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 107 mph.

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

Showers and thunderstorms developed during the late afternoon and evening hours ahead of a low pressure system moving through the Ohio Valley.

The tornado developed in the vicinity of Purity Road where some outbuildings sustained considerable damage, with metal roofing and siding material getting tossed and wrapped in adjacent tree stands. Groves of soft white pine were snapped in a few locations. ||The tornado continued east across Stradley Road and then to Rocky Fork and Rain Rock Roads where more groves of pine trees were snapped and thrown on both roads. Large limbs were thrown onto a house on Rocky Fork Road and metal barn roofing was lifted. Garage doors were also blown in and spatter was noted on buildings and vehicles on Rain Rock Road. A clear path of tree/vegetation loss was seen in this area. The tornado dissipated on the east side of Rain Rock Road. ||Damage along the entire path was consistent with wind speeds of 70 to 75 mph.

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 22:01 UTC and running to 04:06 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 Enhanced Risk, with a 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 01:11 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), 144 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 03:49 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

52 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.