F3 Tornado — Paulding, Ohio

2002-11-10 · near Roselms, Paulding, Ohio

Event narrative

This tornado originated in Van Wert county and crossed into Paulding county 3 miles southwest of Roselms and exited Paulding county about 2.5 miles southeast of Oakwood. NWS ground and aerial survey found F3 damage along the entire path in Paulding county, with only one structure remaining standing in the town of Roselms, in which the town residents had taken cover in the basement.

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 → (40.9833, -84.4500)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 5322863. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.