F4 Tornado — Van Wert, Ohio

2002-11-10 · near Willshire, Van Wert, Ohio

Event narrative

This tornado touched down in the southwest corner of Van Wert County about 4 miles northeast of Willshire and moved northeast across the western portion of the city of Van Wert, and then crossed U.S. 30 and continued northeast before exiting the county about 7 miles east of Scott. NWS ground and aerial surveys showed the tornado quickly intensified to F4 about 5 miles southwest of the city of Van Wert near Zook road, where a 75 year old male was killed in his home. The tornado continued moving northeast as an F4 into the city of Van Wert, were it hit the Twin Cinemas and the Vision Industrial Park. At this point the tornado was about one half mile wide. 60 persons watching a movie in the cinemas, mostly children, took shelter before the tornado hit, with only minor injuries. Vehicles from the parking lot were thrown into the seats where the children had been sitting. An 18 year old male driving past the cinemas was thrown from his vehicle and killed. The tornado then destroyed five industries in the Vision Industrial Park, before moving north of U.S. 30, producing F4 damage to additional businesses and homes. The tornado weakened to F3 as it moved northeast and crossed into Paulding county. 164 homes were damaged in Van Wert county, and 43 were totally destroyed. 27 businesses sustained damage, with 5 totally destroyed in Vision Park. Three county engineer buildings were destroyed, with one house used by a township. Total damage in Van Wert county was near 30 million dollars.

Wider weather episode

On Sunday, November 10th, 2002 a cold front trailed from a deep surface low over northern Lake Michigan into central Missouri. Ahead of the cold front the KILN (Wilmington, OH) 1200 UTC sounding showed an unstable airmass with CAPE (Convectively Available Potential Energy) of 1148 J/kg and a Storm Relative Helicity (SRH) of 408 m/s2. Another sounding at 1800 UTC showed CAPE had increased on a modified sounding to 1313 J/kg, with SRH increasing to 587 m/s2. A broken squall line developed from Indianapolis to Fort Wayne Indiana and Defiance Ohio with the cold front. A small low topped supercell developed ahead of the line over Blackford county Indiana and was moving northeast at 50 MPH. This parent supercell produced 3 seperate tornadoes in Indiana (see StormData, Indiana, Northeast for more information) before crossing into Ohio. There the supercell intensified and a tornado touched down in Van Wert County Ohio, reaching F4 in strength as it reached the city of Van Wert. The tornado then moved northeast with a total path length of 53 miles, producing F3 damage in Paulding and Putnam counties, and F0 damage in Defiance and Henry counties.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (40.7833, -84.7667)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 5322801. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.