{"id":191763,"date":"2025-04-13T23:05:38","date_gmt":"2025-04-14T04:05:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=191763"},"modified":"2025-04-14T23:31:16","modified_gmt":"2025-04-15T04:31:16","slug":"why-is-van-wert-county-the-tornado-capital-of-ohio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2025\/04\/13\/why-is-van-wert-county-the-tornado-capital-of-ohio\/","title":{"rendered":"Why is county ‘Tornado Capital of Ohio’?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

SCOTT TRUXELL\/<\/strong>independent editor<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In recent weeks it\u2019s been well documented that Van Wert County is considered the unofficial \u201cTornado Capital of Ohio.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A pair of EF-1 tornadoes that touched down in the county on April 2 were the 40th and 41st recorded tornadoes since 1950. Thirty-six of those tornadoes have occurred since 1990. One of them came down just outside of Van Wert and the other near Glenmore. While there was property damage at both locations, there were no injuries or fatalities.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Approximately 80 showed up for a recent Skywarn spotter training session in Van Wert. A strong network of spotters is vital in a tornado-prone area such as Van Wert County. Photo courtesy of Rick McCoy<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Van Wert County EMA Director Rick McCoy believes the reason for the high number of twisters may be twofold. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m very aggressive at watching the storms and going out and finding stuff,\u201d McCoy said, \u201cwhere a lot of counties maybe don\u2019t do that or they find wind damage and think it\u2019s wind so they don\u2019t report it, but it could have been a tornado.
\u201cI\u2019ve talked to some meteorologists about this (high number) and they think it has to do with Lake Michigan,\u201d he added. \u201cIf you think about our winter months you always see the snow bands coming off the lake and the wind currents coming off the lake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSome meteorologists believe during the severe weather season that is still coming down through here, and so it\u2019s maybe colliding with your weather system and causing more spin or more interaction in the atmosphere, fronts coming together,” McCoy also noted. \u201cIt\u2019s speculation on their part, but it\u2019s something that maybe they\u2019d like to do more research on.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

McCoy also credited many active weather spotters throughout Van Wert County, including volunteer fire departments, who watch the skies when severe weather approaches, a notion seconded by Dustin J. Norman, Warning Coordination Meteorologist with the National Weather Service, Northern Indiana, which serves Van Wert County.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI would say a part of it has to do with having very engaged emergency managers\/spotters in Van Wert who are really good at finding damage paths,\u201d Norman stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Approximately 80 people attended an official National Weather Service Skywarn spotters training class held in Van Wert in late March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As far as issuing a tornado warning, which means a tornado has been sighted or is indicated by weather radar, only the National Weather Service is authorized to do so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat doesn\u2019t mean we can\u2019t bypass them and put out alerts,\u201d McCoy said. \u201cLet\u2019s say they haven\u2019t put out a warning yet and one of my spotters sees a tornado on the ground, I\u2019m doing two things. I\u2019m alerting the public that a tornado has been spotted and at the same time we\u2019re relaying that to the National Weather Service. My alert to that point is coming out before the National Weather Service\u2019s warning. We can do that locally.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McCoy also said while he can\u2019t issue an official warning, state law allows him to sound the county\u2019s tornado sirens when needed, even in the absence of a National Weather Service warning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wednesday: information on Van Wert County\u2019s tornado sirens.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SCOTT TRUXELL\/independent editor In recent weeks it\u2019s been well documented that Van Wert County is considered the unofficial \u201cTornado Capital of Ohio.\u201d A pair of EF-1 tornadoes that touched down in the county on April 2 were the 40th and 41st recorded tornadoes since 1950. Thirty-six of those tornadoes have occurred since 1990. One of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-191763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-13 21:39:57","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191763"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191763\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":191862,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191763\/revisions\/191862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}