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EF1 tornado in Mercer County, Ohio

Tornado March 14, 2024 · Mercer County, Ohio

EF1
Rating
9.3 mi
Whole path
450 yd
Path width
$250K
Damage as recorded

NOAA records this tornado county by county. Its path ran through Adams County, Indiana → Mercer County; the totals above are for the whole tornado.

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 450 yards (0.26 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

The tornado initially began at 1740EST over an open field in Adams County, Indiana, north of the intersection of East County Road 1200 South and South County Road 600 East and moved east toward the Indiana/Ohio State line.

The tornado entered Mercer County, Ohio, at 1745EST, along Skeels Road, where minor damage was observed to a house. The most confident corridor of EF-1 tornado damage, estimated to be around 100 mph, occurred shortly after the tornado developed. Most of the damage was confined to a few properties south of the intersection of Skeels Road and State Route 49. Several outbuildings were completely destroyed and one house received some roof damage. The tornado continued eastward and followed Carmel Church Road, where it caused numerous tree and additional outbuilding damage.

A more southeast motion of the tornado started at the intersection of Carmel Church Road and Erastus Durbin Road. Additional damage was observed between this location and the intersection of Now and Mud Pike Roads. The final corridor of damage was observed along Mud Pike Road and toward the intersection at State Route 118, where several homes were damaged. The tornado dissipated east of this location.

The wider storm

Thunderstorms developed in an unseasonably warm and humid airmass ahead of an approaching cold front.

Began near Wabash (40.5700, -84.8150).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 1161942. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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