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EF2 tornado in Ottawa County, Ohio

Tornado June 15, 2023 · Ottawa County, Ohio

EF2
Rating
3.6 mi
Whole path
200 yd
Path width
$270K
Damage as recorded

NOAA records this tornado county by county. Its path ran through Ottawa County → Sandusky County; the totals above are for the whole tornado.

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 200 yards (0.11 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF2 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF2 is considerable damage: roofs torn off well-built houses, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, consistent with estimated gusts of 111–135 mph. The rating comes from a survey of the worst damage after the storm, not from a wind measurement, so it says as much about what the tornado hit as about how strong it was.

What the National Weather Service wrote

A tornado began about three miles south of Oak Harbor and tracked east-northeastward before ending about three miles east-southeast of Oak Harbor. Five homes were damaged along the tornado's path and several of these homes lost their roofs. The tornado also destroyed seven barns and ten cattle fatalities were reported. This tornado received a peak rating of EF2 with estimated peak winds of 130 mph.

The wider storm

A cold front moved into northwest Ohio the evening of Thursday, June 15. A weak surface low pressure developed along this front over southern Michigan earlier in the day and moved southeast across the western tip of Lake Erie during the evening. A warm front extended southeast of this low pressure along the western Lake Erie shoreline and then down towards central Ohio. Thunderstorms erupted along the cold front near Toledo just before 6:00 PM and moved southeast towards east-central Ohio over the coming hours. Enhanced vertical wind shear associated with the low pressure and warm front allowed storms to rotate amidst an unstable environment. A particularly intense supercell (rotating thunderstorm) developed near the Ohio/Michigan border just north of Toledo and tracked across parts of Lucas, Ottawa, Sandusky, Erie, Huron, Seneca, Richland, Ashland, and Wayne Counties. This supercell was responsible for nine tornadoes and numerous instances of large hail, with hail to at least the size of tennis balls reported near Toledo and multiple reports of hail to golf ball sized or larger as the storm continued southeast. Heavy rainfall from this supercell also produced flash flooding across Huron County. Storms gradually congealed into a line that produced some hail and straight-line convective wind damage into east central Ohio.

Began near Strongs Ridge (41.4688, -83.1457).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

9 more tornadoes the National Weather Service filed under this storm episode.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 1119909. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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