Multiple counties in the Tri-State spent the overnight hours under tornado warnings after radar showed rotation in severe thunderstorms near Alexandria and Taylor Mill. One warning lasted until 1:45 a.m., while another stayed in place until 1:15 a.m.
That made the weather search today less about a general storm forecast and more about whether the strongest cells would keep turning as they moved east. At 12:58 a.m., a severe thunderstorm capable of producing a tornado was over Alexandria and moving east at 45 mph. Two minutes earlier, at 12:52 a.m., radar detected rotation near Taylor Mill in another severe thunderstorm moving east at the same speed. Residents in the Tri-State were also watching a confirmed tornado over Rising Sun, Ind., at about 12:24 a.m., and an earlier tornado warning for Warren County, Ohio, had already expired at 12:30 a.m.
The warnings mattered because they overlapped with a broader tornado watch that remained in effect until 5 a.m. Through that window, the main threats were damaging wind gusts, large hail and isolated tornadoes. Heavy rain and localized flash flooding were also possible if storms repeatedly tracked over the same areas, so the overnight danger was not limited to wind alone.
The sharpest friction was that the strongest storms were expected to stay west of the Tri-State, yet active tornado warnings were still being issued overnight. That is the part that mattered most to anyone awake before sunrise: the storms may have been losing some strength as they pushed east, especially east of Interstate 75, but they were still organized enough to trigger warnings. In weather terms, that means the risk was falling, not gone.
Rain was expected to move out before sunrise on Thursday, and the day was then expected to turn partly cloudy to mostly sunny. After an overnight with warnings, watches and rotation on radar, the immediate question for the Tri-State was not whether storms had passed, but how quickly the atmosphere would quiet down once the last band moved through.
