• The National Weather Service confirmed tornadoes touched down in Ottawa, Huron and Lorain Counties in Ohio on June 18.
• Those three tornadoes bring Ohio’s total to 21 tornadoes so far this year.
• Ohio had seen 62 tornadoes by mid-June 2024 on the way to a record-setting 74 twisters.

Strong storms that blew through Ohio on Wednesday night, June 18, cut power to tens of thousands across the state.

They also spawned several tornadoes, the National Weather Service in Cleveland confirmed Thursday, June 19.

Three tornadoes touched down during the severe storms, downing limbs as well as snapping and uprooting trees in three Ohio counties. They also damaged homes and buildings, sending a tree into a house in one instance, shattering windows, destroying barns and silos on farms and tearing roofs off structures, per the NWS.

Where in Ohio did tornadoes hit and how strong were the twisters? Here’s what to know.

Tornadoes touch down in Ottawa, Huron and Lorain Counties

The NWS has confirmed three tornadoes touched down the evening of June 18, in Ottawa, Huron and Lorain Counties in northern Ohio.

The first touched down at 7:43 p.m. near the Village of Elmore in Ottawa County and traveled about half a mile. It was on the ground for a minute, according to NWS surveyors. The tornado damaged a metal outbuilding as well as the roof of a residence. It also destroyed a grain silo and snapped a couple of trees. The twister was rated an EF0 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale with a maximum wind speed of 80 mph.

The second struck near the Village of Rocky Ridge in Ottawa County at 7:50 p.m. and was on the ground for 2 minutes, traveling 2.94 miles. The tornado sent a tree onto a house along with other tree damage and partially tore the roof off a barn. It also produced other minor roof and facade damage and shattered a window, per NWS surveyors. This tornado was rated an EF0 with a maximum wind speed of 70 mph.

The final tornado hit near the Village of Wakeman in Huron County and traveled 9.36 miles into Lorain County. It sent limbs and branches onto area homes, downed trees and damaged roofs. It also caused the “failure of a roof” on a large barn, per NWS surveyors. It was rated an EF1 with a maximum wind speed of 100 mph.

Ohio tornado total for 2025

These three tornadoes bring Ohio’s total for the year so far to 21. That compares to 62 tornadoes by this time in 2024.

Last year set a new tornado record for the state, 74, becoming the worst year for tornadoes in Ohio since 1992 when the previous record of 62 was set. By June 2024, Ohio had already tied that record, with the record-breaker coming on June 29.

When is tornado season in Ohio?

In Ohio, tornado season peaks between April and June, according to the National Weather Service.

Kristen Cassady, a 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. However, 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.”

How are tornadoes confirmed?

After suspected tornadoes are spotted, crews from the National Weather Service survey possible tornado damage in person.

The pattern of damage, not how much damage was caused, determines whether it was a tornado, according to the weather service. For tornadoes, with their violently rotating columns of air, damage often has a chaotic appearance, with larger uprooted trees often crossing each other. Weather service surveyors often look at larger uproots of trees to get a true idea of where the wind was blowing from.

How are tornadoes rated?

The Enhanced Fujita Scale classifies tornadoes into the following categories:

• EF0: Weak, with wind speeds of 65 to 85 mph
• EF1: Weak, 86 to 110 mph
• EF2: Strong, 111 to 135 mph
• EF3: Strong, 136 to 165 mph
• EF4: Violent, 166 to 200 mph
• EF5: Violent, greater than 200 mph

There is also an EF Unknown ranking, “a final caveat that has been added adjacent to the scale in recent years,” the Weather Channel reports. It rates a tornado sighted and documented by storm chasers or the public, but no damage can be found when the area is later surveyed.

The afternoon started with a big win for the Buckeyes as they secured one of their highest-priority targets in the 2026 class, in-state linebacker and top-100 prospect Cincere Johnson, who could be the next star to come out of the Glenville-to-Ohio State pipeline.

The Buckeyes didn’t get the Double BOOM they were hoping for on Thursday, however, as coveted defensive end target Luke Wafle committed to USC. While it appeared on Wednesday as though Ohio State had done enough to secure the standout edge defender from New Jersey, he ultimately chose the Trojans after they made a late push to land the top prospect.

Ohio State doesn‘t like getting into bidding wars for recruits, but their reported efforts to land Wafle with a lucrative NIL package showed just how badly Larry Johnson and the Buckeyes wanted him. In the end, though, it seems USC was a little more desperate to land Wafle than Ohio State, and the Buckeyes came up short in his recruitment as a result.

That stings, as it’s far from the first time Ohio State has lost a tight battle for a top defensive line target over the past few years, but the Buckeyes are still in the running for several other elite defensive ends such as Carter Meadows, KJ Ford, Landon Barnes and Jackson Ford who could now become bigger priorities with Wafle off the board.

As for today, the loss of Wafle shouldn’t overshadow the victory of landing Johnson. While Ohio State was always the frontrunner for Johnson given its track record of signing top prospects from Glenville, the Buckeyes still had to beat out the likes of Alabama and Penn State to secure his commitment. And Johnson’s commitment continues what’s been a very successful start as a recruiter for second-year Ohio State linebackers coach James Laurinaitis, who’s building a linebacker room that should be strong for years to come, even as the 2026 class’ top linebacker, Tyler Atkinson, is trending away from OSU.

We discuss all of that on a new episode of Press Coverage, which you can watch in the video at the top of the page.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio House and Senate Republicans had finally agreed on a bill changing the state’s recreational marijuana policy, but hours before the vote was supposed to take place, it was pulled from the schedule.

Voters spoke loud and clear in November of 2023, with 57% of Ohioans voting yes on Issue 2: legalizing recreational marijuana.

“I voted for it,” state Rep. Jamie Callender (R-Concord), the House’s resident cannabis expert.

Callender has been smoking marijuana for decades and has been trying to reduce stigma around the product for just as long.

If you are 21 years old, you can smoke, vape, and ingest marijuana. Individually, you can grow six plants, but you can grow up to 12 plants per household if you live with others.

But since then, other Republican leaders have been trying to change the law.

For the past several months, the House and Senate chambers have been trying to compromise on their separate bills.

I have been covering marijuana policy extensively for years, including a series answering viewer questions about cannabis.

Ohio GOP plans to pass marijuana restrictions by end of June

In short, the Senate’s proposal decreases THC content, reduces home growing from 12 plants to 6, imposes more criminal penalties and takes away tax money from local municipalities that have dispensaries. The House’s latest version had none of those.

Click here for Senate version and here for House version changes.

“The Senate had proposed taking that tax away, and the House has fought really hard to keep that in…” Callender said. “We finally had that negotiated so it would stay in.”

Recently, Callender told me an agreement was reached on following most of the House’s new version, which mainly focused on preventing children from accessing the drug. The bill was set to hit the House floor Wednesday.

But in a turn of events, Republican infighting is preventing the bill from being passed.

“Apparently, the Senate changed their mind,” Callender said.

In a shock to House Speaker Matt Huffman (R-Lima), the Senate pulled out of the compromise.

“I’m pretty disappointed — we’re not going to have it on the floor today,” Huffman said. “To my surprise, there was a whole new set of issues, additional issues, which were raised Monday night by the Senate regarding what we were trying to do.”

It was a Senate push for 16 changes, ones that Huffman didn’t get to even see until the day before the vote was set to take place.

“They wanted to make a mandatory jail sentence for passing a joint between friends,” Callender said, referencing a provision on “sharing.”

The main holdup is the tax money, he added.

The law gives the 10% tax revenue from each marijuana sale to four different venues: 36% to the social equity fund, to help people disproportionately impacted by marijuana-related laws; 36% to host cities — ones that have dispensaries; 25% to the state’s mental health and addiction services department; and 3% to the state’s cannabis control department.

Instead, the Senate wants all the revenue from the tax to be sent to the state’s General Revenue Fund, meaning lawmakers can choose to allocate that money toward whatever they want.

The House, as Callender had mentioned, has a major sticking point with making sure that at least the local municipalities get at least some percentage of the tax revenue.

“What changed in the past 72 hours to pull the Senate out of the marijuana deal?” I asked Senate President Rob McColley (R-Napoleon)

“Well, I wouldn’t say anything has changed; I think the conversations have gone pretty well on it,” McColley responded. “I think, maybe, there was a misunderstanding as to where we might have been on the bill as both chambers.”

The president wants to follow his version of the legislation.

“Our priorities are in the bill that we already passed,” he said.

The teams will work together to actually come to an agreement as soon as possible, he continued.

“I would like to get something done by the end of June; I think [Huffman] would like to get something done by the end of June,” McColley added. “We’ll see if we can get something done in the next week.”

Huffman said he’s “not very optimistic” about that.

“I just told my caucus: ‘We’re not going to just say, “OK,” because we’re so anxious to pass the marijuana bill,’ which I’d like to get it done, but we’re not going to give up house priorities to do that,” the speaker said.

Several hours later, Huffman responded to additional cannabis questions.

“I thought we were on a path, this time last week, to pass it [this week],” the speaker said. “That was the kind of clear indication we had.”

However, when I pointed out to Huffman how McColley denied their agreement, he switched gears.

“There was no agreement to pull out of,” he said.

I asked why he would put a bill on the floor if there wasn’t an agreement.

“We were hoping that there would be, anticipating there would be, sounded like we might have, but it’s not correct to say that there was an agreement that anybody pulled out of,” he said.

However, his cousin and the resident marijuana expert in the opposite chamber, state Sen. Steve Huffman (R-Tipp City), said there was. The senator had been the main negotiating party for that chamber.

“We were in an agreement,” S. Huffman said.

He continued that policy staff and McColley brought “ongoing concerns” to him, but he believes they could be easily fixed. An additional reason why it was pulled is due to drafting issues with the bill language, he added.

“I believe that things are still being worked out, and I have the utmost confidence that we will resolve this by next Wednesday,” the senator said.

Callender isn’t so sure about that.

“Do you believe that the Senate will be going against the will of the voters with all of their requests?” I asked him.

“Yes,” he said.

Callender said that this reminds him of the last General Assembly, when M. Huffman and former Speaker Jason Stephens (R-Kitts Hill) were squabbling constantly about everything, but especially marijuana.

Stephens and Callender prevented then-Senate President Huffman’s legislation from passing. Back in 2023-24, Huffman proposed a bill very similar to the Senate’s current version.

It appears that Huffman, with the House GOP, has shifted away from a more restrictive view to a position similar to the one Stephens held in the past.

Follow WEWS statehouse reporter Morgan Trau on Twitter and Facebook.