EF0 tornado in Muskingum County, Ohio

An NWS damage survey confirmed that an EF-0 tornado, with winds

peaking near 85 mph, tracked through central Muskingum County on

the evening of April 2, 2024. The length was about 1.21 miles and

the max width was estimated to be 50 yards. This tornado was

associated with the same circulation that initially produced a

tornado about 2 miles north of North Zanesville, OH near the Green

Valley Golf Club.

Weak tornado damage was noted along Bethel Road and New Hope

Road, with a few trees snapped and roof damage to outbuildings.

All the structures that were damaged were in open fields.

The tornado lifted around 8:51 pm. However, there was a new

circulation in Guernsey County, OH along Cowden Road that produced

EF-1 damage.

Several rounds of showers and thunderstorms prompted a widespread flash flood problems across the Ohio River Valley on April 2nd to April 3rd. The synoptic pattern across the CONUS was a slow moving and deep elongated trough over the Great Plains phasing with a ejecting trough over the Midwest that created an area of converging moisture over eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania. Overall, over a span of 4 days, four to five an half inches of rain fell across the region. Not only was small tributaries impact, but the main river reached moderate flood stage.

Along with flooding, there was a brief period of severe storms that tracked along eastern Ohio on the evening of April 2nd. A number of tornadoes touched down and were surveyed. Special soundings released by PBZ and ILN depict effective instability over eastern Ohio (1200J/kg to 1700J/kg), effective low-level shear (+50kts), and low-level helicity (300m2/s2) for rotating updrafts just before storms tracked through the area.