COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- For the second year in a row, we experienced two outbreaks of tornadoes in Ohio before the official arrival of spring on the calendar.
On Thursday evening, March 14, tornadoes began dropping from roiling clouds over eastern Indiana and northwestern Ohio in response to a powerful jet stream, with winds shifting direction and gaining speed with height, causing the air to turn in the more intense thunderstorm updrafts.
Low pressure traveling along a warm front added spin while tapping into the unseasonably warm and increasingly humid air, with temperatures in the late afternoon recovering to the balmy 70s when the sun came out.
A preliminary total of eight tornadoes were counted by National Weather Service offices in Ohio, with additional storms reported in Indiana and Kentucky, which formed amidst a long line of showers and storms that extended from Pennsylvania to Texas.
The Weather Service field survey results are still preliminary, so the actual count could increase slightly as more details of the individual storm tracks are reviewed, corroborated by radar evidence of rotation and debris signatures.
Hail up to three inches in diameter accompanied the strongest storms in Ohio. The previous day, a report from Ada, Okla., indicated hail up to 5.25 inches in size.
More than 700 reports of severe weather were tallied, and 111 tornado warnings were issued, on March 13-14 in the latest in a series of powerful storm systems fueled by El Niño warmth in the eastern tropical Pacific.
Ohio had nine confirmed tornadoes on Feb. 28, a record for any day in February. That brings the season total to at least 18, including an isolated landspout storm on Mar. 5--a record for so early in the season.
The pattern of late winter storms has become familiar. Last year, two weather systems triggered tornadoes in Ohio on Feb. 27 (5) and Mar. 3 (4).
Although tornadic storms are not uncommon in the Southern states in the wintertime, there is a trend for more winter tornadoes to occur near and north of the Ohio River in the past decade. The primary reasons are a combination of milder winters in the Midwest, warmer waters in the Gulf of Mexico, and the increased frequency of powerful jet stream winds overlapping the unstable environment.
