F3 tornado in Putnam County, Ohio

This tornado originated in Van Wert county and moved across Paulding county into Putnam county about 4 miles west southwest of Continental. NWS ground and aerial survey found F3 damage as the tornado entered Putnam county, striking a mobile home and killing a husband and wife. The tornado moved northeast across the northwest corner of Putnam county, quickly weakening to an F0 as it exited the county 4.5 miles north of Continental.

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.