This story is just developing, but weather radar data indicates that a tornado struck on or very near the south side of Wright Patterson AFB near Dayton, Ohio. This is where the National Museum Of The United States Air Force is located. Wright Patterson, in general, is an extremely important base. It is home of the USAF Materiel Command and a number of strategic airlifters, among many other tenants. It may be some time before we hear exactly what transpired as it is night in Ohio and more super-cells are barreling through the area as this post is being written.
Massive storms are ravaging the region causing multiple states to be on high alert for potential tornado activity. There have already been 40 reports of tornadoes across five states in the Midwest and at least six of those tornados have already been confirmed.
According to Michigan’s Channel 17 Fox affiliate “Many of the wind speeds on clocked on Doppler Radar velocity were in the neighborhood of 100 to 110 mph. Some of these tornadoes are likely to be classified at least an EF-1, with EF-2 quite likely.”
Even if it missed Wright Patterson AFB, the area is heavily populated and a tornado touching down within the metropolitan area around Dayton could be devastating.
The Air Force is already reeling from two separate major weather events that decimated nearly all of Tyndall AFB in Florida and badly flooded half of Offutt AFB in Nebraska. The damage done is now considered to be in the billions of dollars and this year’s hurricane, tornado, and fire seasons are just heating up.
Our thoughts are with those in the Midwest that are having to wait out this terrible spate of dangerous weather.
We will update this post with more information.
Update: 9:30pm PDT—
Reports coming in saying a tornado tore across northern Dayton. See the supposed track below:
Local news is reporting structures leveled and debris all over in areas around Northern Dayton. Look at this video, you can see the tornado appear when the lightning strikes:
Update: 10:20pm PDT—
Some heavy damage near the museum:
We have continuing coverage of this event here.
Contact the author: Tyler@thedrive.com