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EF1 tornado in Geauga County, Ohio

Tornado August 6, 2024 · Geauga County, Ohio

EF1
Rating
4.7 mi
Whole path
200 yd
Path width
$30K
Damage as recorded

NOAA records this tornado county by county. Its path ran through Lake County → Geauga County; the totals above are for the whole tornado.

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 200 yards (0.11 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

This tornado had peak intensity of EF1, estimated peak winds of 110 mph, and travelled generally southeastward during its lifespan. The tornado exited Lake County and entered Geauga County just west-southwest of the intersection of Hidden Valley Drive and Tibbets Road on the northwest side of Chesterland. Numerous trees were uprooted and snapped along the Geauga County portion of the tornado's path, including along Tibbets and Caves Roads, Chillicothe Road, and Mulberry Road. Several homes experienced minor damage from the uprooted and snapped trees. The tornado then dissipated very soon after crossing Wilson Mills Road on the northeast side of Chesterland.

The wider storm

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.

Began near Mulberry Corners (41.5698, -81.3664).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 1213185. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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