Storms blow through Van Wert County

VW independent staff/submitted information

Thursday night’s storms brought a bit of havoc to the area, as severe storms began moving through Van Wert County at approximately 7:30 p.m.

According to Van Wert County Emergency Management Agency Director Rick McCoy, temperatures at the time had hit a record high of 81 degrees and then fell off to 32 degrees by Friday morning, which created the fuel in the atmosphere for severe weather. McCoy added the storms did bring some much needed rainfall of nearly 1.5 inches, but also some damaging winds in the county.

He also stated that the National Weather Service was conducting several surveys this morning where it appears from videos taken and damage reported that tornadoes may have struck in Mercer County and Huntington County, Indiana.

The National Weather Service had placed the Van Wert County under a tornado watch late in the afternoon and a number of storm chasers from around the country had converged on Indiana and Ohio to stream a possible tornado outbreak. The local EMA tracked storms across Indiana and projected the storms would hit between 7:30-8 p.m.

Shortly after the storms had moved into the western portion of the county and a few damage reports were being reported, the National Weather Service issued a severe thunderstorm warning for the southern half of the county. McCoy stated that some intense winds came with the storm and the highest gust of 65 miles per hour was recorded in Convoy. He said the Wetzel station measured 64 miles per hour with Delphos coming in at 54 miles per hour. He also said that several reports came in of possible gustnadoes, where the winds were intense enough and moving at a fast forward speed that it made dust storms with wind rotating from the ground up to the cloud base.

Local law enforcement and the EMA’s CERT teams were kept busy after the storm had passed, conducting traffic control at several locations in the county due to poles down including some telephone and power lines that were blocking roadways. A number of homeowners were also reporting shingles blown off of roofs and trees were reported down around the county.