Ohio's worst tornado season started 1 year ago today. How does 2025 look?

Yahoo

28-02-2025

One year ago today, on Feb. 28, 2024, was the start of the worst tornado season Ohio experienced in decades.
How bad was it? It broke a record that had stood since 1992. Here's a look back.
The first round of tornadoes to hit the state in 2024 struck on the morning of Feb. 28, the Columbus Dispatch reported. Six twisters touched down, including:
An EF2 tornado, with peak wind speeds of 120 mph per the Enhanced Fujita Scale, in Monroe County
An EF2 tornado in eastern Franklin County, which decreased to an EF1 in western Licking County
An EF1 tornado in Madison County
An EF2 tornado in Clark and Madison counties
An EF1 tornado in Franklin County
An EF1 tornado in Montgomery and Greene counties
Ohio had 74 tornadoes in 2024, according to data provided by the Wilmington office of the National Weather Service, with the final one of the year hitting on Dec. 29. The total broke the state's previous record of 62 tornadoes in 1992.
In fact, Ohio broke its previous tornado record a little more than halfway through 2024. The state's 63rd tornado touched down on June 29 in the City of Willard in Huron County, about 26 miles northwest of Mansfield.
On March 14, an EF3 tornado—with wind speeds of 136 to 165 mph, per the Enhanced Fujita Scale—ripped through Auglaize and Logan counties in Western Ohio. It left a nearly 32-mile path of destruction, killed three people and injured dozens more.
The Logan County Sheriff's Office identified Darla Williams, 70; Marilyn Snapp, 81; and Neal Longfellow, 69, as the deceased. The Sheriff also said the storm injured another 24 people.
The Indian Lake region was the hardest hit by storms that spawned nine tornadoes across the state that day. In September, six months after the tornado, the community was still rebuilding, the Dispatch previously reported.
'It's been relentless," Brandon Peloquin, warning coordination meteorologist for the NWS Wilmington office, said about the Ohio tornado season in a previous article.
As weather patterns transitioned from winter to spring, Peloquin said the jet stream—the air currents flowing from west to east high in the atmosphere that steer weather systems—lined up just right to direct multiple strong systems through the Ohio Valley.
The jet stream kept Ohio on the warm side of low fronts, Peloquin said, creating south winds that brought moisture up from the Gulf of Mexico. High moisture combined with the energy created by wind shears and the rapid movement of air from low to high in the atmosphere (instability and buoyancy) are the ingredients that can lead to severe weather, he said.
Peloquin said that while it's not clear on how active the severe weather season in 2025 will be, it's important that everyone be prepared.
It's not uncommon for at least one late-winter severe weather event in the Ohio Valley, Peloquin said. Like when tornado season kicked off on Feb. 28, 2024, with severe weather and tornadoes across parts of the state.
Stay aware of the weather, he said, and know if there is a risk for severe storms and flooding on any given day. Have multiple ways to receive watches and warnings and know what to do when they are issued.
In Ohio, tornado season peaks between April and June, according to the National Weather Service.
Kristen Cassady, meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Wilmington, Ohio, said previously that it is typical for severe weather frequency to ramp up in Ohio at the beginning of March, though March is not a peak tornado season month.
'We typically do see severe weather events, including tornadoes, in the month of March, even though there is a slightly higher frequency climatologically in April and May,' Cassady said. 'March is still one of the primary months for tornadoes in the Ohio Valley.'
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Ohio tornado season in 2024 broke records. How bad was it? Will 2025 be worse?