2029 New Albany, Ohio tornado

On April 25, 2029, an extremely violent EF5 tornado impacted the Columbus, Ohio metropolitan area. Known as the New Albany tornado from the name of the most severely affected city, this tornado's path roughly followed a line from Grove City to Johnstown and caused major damage to large swaths of the Columbus area. It was part of the April 2029 tornado outbreak sequence.

Meteorological synopsis
At 8:30am EDT on April 25, 2029, John Glenn Columbus International Airport recorded a temperature of 71 F with a dewpoint of 69 F. The atmosphere over central Ohio was already highly unstable and featured a rotating atmosphere with southerly surface winds, an SSW-to-NNE oriented low-level jet, and a SW-to-NE oriented upper-level jet; the winds were turning with height in an atmosphere already conductive to tornadoes. However, an elevated mixed layer (EML) advected across the Midwest from the Southern Plains, which provided a warm-and-dry layer aloft (a "cap") that would prevent storm initiation until later in the day.

Meanwhile, by 11:30 AM EDT, the supercell responsible for the New Albany tornado would form over Southern Illinois. It would produce 4 tornadoes, 3 of which were long-track, and 2 of which produced EF3+ damage, prior to its arrival in central Ohio. Around 2:30pm, a series of supercells explosively developed over central Ohio as the cap broke, though none of these supercells would stabilize the atmosphere over the south and east portions of the Columbus metro area. In fact, the formation of these initial supercells only served to increase the available rotational energy in the area, through the generation of outflow boundaries which helped in backing surface winds to the southeast. As the supercell responsible for the New Albany tornado approached the Columbus metro area, surface-based CAPE values exceeded 4,000 J/kg, with 0-3km storm relative helicity (SRH) values around 700 m2s-2and 0-1km SRH around 400 m2 s-2. This generated an extremely high 0-3km energy helicity index (EHI) of 17.5, with 0-1km EHI equal to 10. With winds continuing to turn clockwise (and increase their speed) with height, the environment was perfect for extremely violent tornadoes.

Just prior to the supercell's arrival in the Columbus metro area, at 4:00 pm EDT, John Glenn Columbus International Airport reported a temperature of 83 F with a dewpoint of 73 F. It was obvious that none of the prior supercells had an effect on the extreme instability nor the temperatures responsible for that instability.

The supercell responsible for the New Albany tornado was one of the longest-lived on record, persisting for 875 miles from near Marion, Illinois all the way to near Albany, New York.

Tornado summary
At 4:21 pm EDT, the tornado touched down west of Harrisburg, rapidly strengthening and widening as it started to produce EF2 damage on the northwest side of Grove City. Shortly afterwards, at 4:28pm, the National Weather Service (NWS) in Wilmington, OH issued a tornado emergency for the Columbus metro area. Around the same time, just east of Urbancrest, the tornado started producing EF3 damage, including the tornado's first deaths on the south side of Columbus. Just before crossing I-71 south of Greenlawn Avenue, a toxic waste spill triggered by the EF3 tornado contaminates a small area of south Columbus near McCoy Park and the Lou Berliner Sports Park.

At 4:34 pm, the tornado strengthened to an EF4 just west of Schiller Park and began leveling houses at the southern end of German Village. The neighborhood of Livingston Park was especially hard-hit, with 20 fatalities occurring in that neighborhood alone. Nationwide Children's Hospital took mostly EF3 damage. In spite of the destruction, it could have been worse; the tornado missed downtown Columbus by less than a mile.

After causing destruction on the south side of Columbus, the city's east side then took damage, with EF4 damage continuing into Franklin Park. Further fatalities occurred here just as the tornado slams into the north side of Bexley, continuing to level homes along its path.

At 4:42pm, EF4 damage continues as the tornado strikes the western end of John Glenn Columbus International Airport, where the tornado produced the first evidence of ground scouring at the western end of the airport's runways. However, the terminal itself did not receive any tornadic damage.

After passing over the airport, the tornado then made a direct hit into the center of Gahanna, continuing to produce EF4 damage and destroying the neighborhoods between downtown Gahanna and the New Albany city line. At Creekway Court in the northernmost area of Gahanna, the tornado produced EF5 damage for the first time.

At 4:50pm, the tornado crossed into New Albany, striking the neighborhoods around the New Albany Country Club at EF5 intensity. Large homes were reduced to bare foundations and open basements.

After hitting the New Albany Country Club area, the tornado reached a record width of 2.75 miles wide. This damage swath extended from just north of State Route 161 at the New Albany Road interchange all the way southeast to Kitzmiller Road near New Albany Farms and the Wexner Estate.

Just as the tornado achieved this record width, at 4:55pm, a mobile radar positioned in western Licking County detected tornadic wind speeds as high as 350 mph just above ground level over the center of New Albany. These extreme winds went on to destroy the old center of New Albany, the Mount Carmel Hospital, and the Abercrombie & Fitch Home Office. Practically all buildings (including several multi-story structures like the Mount Carmel Hospital and the A&F Home Office) in the path of this "supertornado" were leveled completely to the ground. The extreme winds reduced slightly at Evans Road in the Clearcreek neighborhood, although EF5 damage continued to a point just east of the Licking County line. 52 deaths occur in the New Albany city limits, especially at the A&F Home Office (22 deaths) and the Mount Carmel Hospital (9 deaths, including 5 patients).

As the tornado crossed into Licking County, it started weakening slightly, although EF4 damage continued as far east as Clover Valley and Green Chapel Roads southwest of Johnstown. EF3 damage continued to the southwest side of Johnstown proper, where damage occurred to the Redwood neighborhood along with several buildings along Mink Street. EF2 damage then occurred at Johnstown-Monroe High School. Finally, near the Hillcrest Golf Course just northeast of Johnstown, the tornado began to rope out, and it finally lifted northwest of the intersection of U.S. Route 62 and Dutch Lane at 5:15pm.

The New Albany tornado was both the strongest and widest tornado on record, and resulted in 151 fatalities along its entire track, making it the deadliest tornado of the day and the second-deadliest of the outbreak sequence.

Note that this scenario is partially based on that seen here: https://hypotheticaltornadoes.fandom.com/wiki/Tornado_outbreak_of_April_23,_2020

Aftermath
This tornado was responsible for 151 total fatalities and 2127 injuries over its 40 mile path. Total costs associated with this tornado exceeded $6.1 billion, making the New Albany tornado one of the costliest U.S. tornadoes on record. Several factors contributed to the costliness of this tornado: these included impacts on highly populated areas; destruction of affluent neighborhoods in Bexley, Gahanna, and New Albany; and damage to economically-valuable buildings (including, but not limited to, Nationwide Children's Hospital and the headquarters of Abercrombie & Fitch).

Locations just to the northwest of this tornado's track, including Easton Town Center, would be impacted by an EF4 tornado from a separate storm system the next day. Some neighborhoods in New Albany, such as the northwest corner of Fodor, Wolcott Manor, and Upper Clarendon (the last of which was away from the first tornado's path), would be more seriously affected by this second tornado.