While a confirmed Sunday tornado was spotted in Highland County, according to WCPO-TV in Cincinnati, the National Weather Service in Wilmington said Monday afternoon that it has not confirmed a tornado in the county.
“We have not received any damage reports from the area either through social media or phone into us and local officials have not reported any damage to us, so at this point we are not able to confirm that there was a tornado that actually touched down,” said Kristen Cassady, a meteorologist with the NWS in Wilmington.
“There were tornado warnings because the storms exhibited some rotation and some pretty tight rotation kind of closer to the ground at low levels which had us concerned that there would be a tornado formation, and certainly there could have been a funnel cloud, but maybe it didn’t reach all the way to the ground because we don’t have any notable damage in those areas,” Cassady added. “There are some data sets we can look at that can give us some indications that a tornado may be on the ground, but without any damage to actually look at we’re not able to confirm a tornado at this point.”
WCPO-TV in Cincinnati said confirmed two separate tornadoes in the area Sunday evening, one near Allensburg near U.S. Route 50 in Highland County and another just north of Mount Orab along U.S. Route 68 in Brown County.
The tornado in Highland County appears to have developed to the north of Allensburg around 9 p.m. Sunday, and the other tornado developed around 8:38 p.m., according to WCPO.
Here is a breakdown of both confirmed tornadoes Sunday evening, according to WCPO:
The first tornado developed around 8:38 p.m. on Sunday north of Mount Orab. WCPO said it used multiple dual pol products to scan the storm and to understand what was happening. The first was called velocity. It shows the air/particle movement within the storm itself. Another product is “shear rate” which is put together from an algorithm by the station’s First Warning Doppler Radar. This shows where there is the greatest twist within a storm. One other tool is called correlation coefficient. This helps with detection of non-meteorological echoes, which is debris.
“When all three of these line up, it is a slam dunk indicator that there has been a tornado that has developed and caused damage in a certain area,” WCPO said.
Reach John Hackley at 937-402-2571.
