EFU Tornado — Hancock, Ohio

2024-03-14 · near West Independence, Hancock, Ohio

Event narrative

Based on several social media photos and videos, eyewitness reports, and law enforcement reports, an intermittent tornado of unknown intensity began just southwest of the intersection of Township Roads 6, 7, 11, and 57 in far-eastern Hancock County, southwest of Alvada. The tornado tracked east-southeastward and entered Seneca County after crossing Township Road 11. Maximum width was estimated because no damage path was found.

Wider weather episode

A cold front drifted south-southeastward from near the northern shore of Lake Erie and southern Lower MI to near the southern shore of Lake Erie and far-northwestern OH during the evening of the 14th as a warm and relatively-moist sector preceded the front in northern OH. Multicell and supercell thunderstorms occurred along and ahead of the front, and persisted generally eastward. Severe hail, some large, and isolated straight-line convective wind damage occurred as the storms encountered weak to moderate MUCAPE, relatively-steep midlevel lapse rates near 7C/km, and moderate to strong effective bulk shear. Three separate supercells spawned a tornado amidst favorably-strong, surface-based effective storm relative helicity and favorably-low mixed layer lifting condensation levels less than 1500 meters AGL. The training supercell thunderstorms with heavy rainfall produced isolated flash flooding as well.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (41.0276, -83.4217)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1166700. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.