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EF1 tornado in Sandusky County, Ohio

Tornado June 15, 2023 · Sandusky County, Ohio

EF1
Rating
3.6 mi
Whole path
100 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 100 yards (0.06 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF1 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF1 is moderate damage: roofs badly stripped, mobile homes pushed off foundations or overturned, windows broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 86–110 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 brief tornado began near the intersection of Township Road 153 and Township Road 146 in Rice Township. As the tornado tracked east-northeastward, several trees were downed and two of these trees damaged a home. Another tree was snapped at its base. The tornado ended just east of the home. This tornado was given a peak rating of EF1 with estimated peak winds of 95 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 Kingsway (41.4494, -83.1558).

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 1119910. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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