EF1 Tornado — Lake, Ohio

2024-08-06 · near Pleasant Vly, Lake, Ohio

Event narrative

This tornado had peak intensity of EF1, estimated peak winds of 110 mph, and travelled generally southeastward during its lifespan. The tornado began along Worrell Road, about two-miles south of Waite Hill, and caused tree damage before exiting Lake County and entering Geauga County just west-southwest of the intersection of Hidden Valley Drive and Tibbets Road on the northwest side of Chesterland.

Wider weather episode

Between about daybreak and nightfall on August 6th, a wavy surface cold front drifted generally southward from northern OH and near the NY/PA line to southern OH and the northern Mid-Atlantic states. This front separated a warm and humid air mass to its north from a warmer and more-humid air mass to its south. A line of multicell thunderstorms persisted southeastward across Mahoning County during the early afternoon and produced localized straight-line convective wind damage. During the late afternoon through early evening, a line of multicell thunderstorms moving eastward across northwest OH merged with a separate line of multicell thunderstorms moving southeastward across western and central Lake Erie. These lines merged to form a more-extensive QLCS that persisted southward and eastward across northern OH. Ahead of these storms, additional multicells and a few transient supercells developed in northeast OH.

All of these storms occurred amidst weak to moderate MUCAPE and moderate to strong effective bulk shear. Extensive straight-line convective wind damage occurred in northern OH, especially northeast OH, as storms also encountered moderate DCAPE and steep low-level lapse rates. The QLCS also produced five mesovortex-related tornadoes amidst large surface-based ESRH of at least 150 meters squared per second squared and favorable mixed-layer LCL's less than 1k meters AGL.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (41.5821, -81.3907)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1213182. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.