EF2 Tornado — Putnam, Ohio

2025-04-02 · near Mandale, Putnam, Ohio

Event narrative

A second tornado spun up north of the decaying Van Wert tornado, touching down in far southeast Paulding County. The tornado severely damaged a pole barn as it moved into Putnam county. The tornado rapidly moved northeast, hitting a well anchored mobile homed and flipping it 60 feet away. Three occupants were in the mobile home and two of them sustained minor injuries. It is here that the tornado peaked at an EF-2 with an estimated wind speed of 120 mph. The tornado destroyed another well-anchored 60x120 ft pole barn, throwing its debris onto the bank of the Auglaize River. To the northeast, it directly hit the town of Dupont where it did widespread EF-0 to EF-1 damage throughout. The tornado damaged several large corn silos (one that was full of corn had the ground anchor bolts break from uplift). It is near here where the visible damage stopped.

Wider weather episode

The atmosphere was primed for severe weather during the afternoon and evening hours of April 2nd. 0-1 km SRH values of 300 to 500 m2/s2, 60 to 70 kts of shear and MLCAPE of around 1000 J/KG set the stage for numerous thunderstorms. Damage reports were not as widespread, but those that occurred tended to be in swaths related to cold pools from bowing segments or tornadoes. Eight tornadoes (three in northern Indiana, one which crossed from Indiana into Lower Michigan, one in lower Michigan and three in northwestern Ohio). A total of five injuries were reported (three in NW Ohio and two in N Indiana).

View location on OpenStreetMap → (41.0290, -84.3420)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1247073. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.