EF0 Tornado — Sandusky, Ohio

2021-10-15 · Sandusky, Ohio

Event narrative

This EF0 tornado had estimated maximum winds of 85 mph. The tornado began about 300 feet west of North Vickery Road and 1200 feet north of Whitmore Road in Vickery, OH, where a spiraling pattern was found in a field. As the tornado moved east-northeastward, it damaged a residential property on North Vickery Road. Shingles and plywood were blown off the house, a wooden deck was displaced by several feet, a detached garage was moved from its foundation, and several trees were uprooted. Debris were scattered about 1200 feet ENE of the damaged home into an open field. The tornado tracked farther east-northeastward and caused additional damage along Pickle Street, where several large tree limbs were downed and a gutter and TV antenna sustained minor damage. Farther to the east-northeast, trees were downed and a spiraling pattern was noted in a corn field along County Road 249 before the tornado ended.

Wider weather episode

A stationary front extended northeastward from the Lower Ohio Valley to western and north-central Ohio, central and eastern Lake Erie, and western New York during the late morning through early evening of the 15th. Simultaneously, one low moved along the front from central Indiana to central Lake Erie. Increased surface convergence along the front, ahead of the aforementioned low, allowed an ongoing cluster of multicell thunderstorms to persist northeastward as the storms encountered moderate MUCAPE and effective bulk shear, respectively, in northwest and north-central Ohio during the early to mid-afternoon.

The surface front and associated horizontal wind shear were probably a rich source of surface-based vertical vorticity. Surface-based effective storm-relative helicity of 100 to about 150 meters squared per second squared and low mixed layer LCL heights near 750 meters AGL resided along the front. All these factors indicated a favorable environment for tornadoes. As the multicell storms paralleled the front, one cell managed to produce a tornado as its updraft ingested preexisting surface-based vertical vorticity, stretched the surface-based vertical vorticity to tornado-strength via low-level convergence, and then advected the vorticity upward.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 986029. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.