Tornadoes · United States · Ohio · 2026
Unrated tornado, Miami County, Ohio, August 15, 2026
This Unrated tornado ran 0.6 miles across Miami County on August 15, 2026, touching down at 8:05 PM EDT and reaching 50 yards wide. It killed nobody.
Preliminary. This is NWS ILN's damage survey, filed in the Damage Assessment Toolkit as N of Fletcher OH. The rating, the path and the casualties are the survey's and can change while it is revised. The Storm Prediction Center compiles the official record of 2026 from these surveys and publishes it in the spring of 2027; this page moves to that tornado's permanent address when it does.
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 mph
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.
Unratedthis tornado
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 survey
- Rating, as surveyed
- Unrated, preliminary
- Date
- August 15, 2026
- Touchdown
- 8:05 PM EDT (00:05 UTC)
- Lifted
- 8:07 PM EDT (00:07 UTC)
- On the ground
- 2 minutes
- Path length
- 0.6 miles (0.9 km)
- Path width
- 50 yards (46 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Miami County
- Touchdown point
- 40.183, -84.118
- Lift-off point
- 40.184, -84.108
- Surveyed by
- NWS ILN
- The office's name for it
- N of Fletcher OH
- Survey last edited
- September 1, 2026
- Record number
- None yet. SPC numbers 2026 in the spring of 2027.
What the survey found
The National Weather Service in Wilmington Ohio has confirmed a tornado north of Fletcher in Miami County, Ohio.
This tornado was confirmed based on video evidence. The tornado is believed to have impacted open fields south of Miami Shelby Road in the vicinity of Casstown Fletcher Road. As this tornado produced no known damage, it has been designated EF-Unknown (EFU) on the Enhanced Fujita Scale.
The National Weather Service would like to thank the Miami County Emergency Management Agency for their coordination.
Written by NWS ILN in the NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit. A survey is revised as better evidence arrives.
The damage survey
9 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS ILN, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 75 mph.
- Tree down across Ward Road.
- Trees down on a barn. RFD damage, not tornadic.
Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.
The warnings
5 minutes of warning. NWS ILN issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:00 UTC, 5 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:24 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 16:00 UTC | 12:00 UTC | Flood Watch | ILN |
| 00:00 UTC | 00:24 UTC | Tornado Warning | ILN |
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 19:41 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), 00:00Z
0.1 hours before the tornado, 88 km from the path. August 16, 2026.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 1073 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -29 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 1768 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 970 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 30 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 17 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 146 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 201 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.7
- Supercell composite
- 4.2
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 6.0 K/km
Cncnati-Daytn, OH (KILN), 12:00Z
11.9 hours after it, 88 km from the path. August 16, 2026.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 2282 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -28 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 718 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 634 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 28 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 30 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 119 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 116 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 5.2
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.7 K/km
The radar
The Cincinnati radar (KILN), 88 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:07 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 00:05 UTC | TORNADO | 3 N Fletcher | Miami, OH | EFU tornado confirmed north of Fletcher in Miami County, Ohio. No known damage observed. |
| 00:06 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 2 N Fletcher | Miami, OH | Tree downed on a barn on Snodgrass Road. Damage to barn roof. |
| 00:18 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 4 Wnw Saint Paris | Champaign, OH | Portion of a tree downed on Coddington Road west of Elm Tree Road. |
| 00:21 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 2 Ese Saint Paris | Champaign, OH | Damage to barn siding and tree damage. Possible tornado. |
| 00:21 UTC | TORNADO | 4 Nw Saint Paris | Champaign, OH | EF0 tornado confirmed northwest of St. Paris in Champaign County, Ohio. Maximum winds of 65 MPH. Minor tree and barn damage observed. |
| 00:24 UTC | TORNADO | 2 Nnw Saint Paris | Champaign, OH | EF0 tornado confirmed north of St. Paris in Champaign County, Ohio. Maximum winds of 75 MPH. Several trees downed, with siding removed from a house. |
| 00:29 UTC | TORNADO | 2 N Saint Paris | Champaign, OH | Tree down on Ward Road property. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2026 tornado in OhioEvery tornado in Ohio since 1950Warnings in force in Ohio nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of August 15, 2026
2 more have been surveyed in the United States that day, so far.
What this means
Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. A survey can be revised, so the rating, the path and the casualties can all still change.
Sources
NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit, the record the survey teams file from the damage, and NOAA Storm Prediction Center storm reports. Neither is the official database for 2026, which SPC publishes in the spring of 2027.