National Weather Service United States Department of Commerce

A record-breaking low pressure system over Minnesota pushed a strong cold front through the lower Midwest on October 26, 2010. The associated cold front aided in the development in a line of strong thunderstorms known as a squall line that stretched from northern Wisconsin through Illinois into Missouri during the early morning hours of the 26th. This line of thunderstorms pushed through the Northern Indiana office's county warning area during the morning and early afternoon hours.

The squall line produced widespread wind damage across the Midwest with wind gusts of 50 to 60 mph with some locations recording gusts up to 75 mph! In addition to the strong winds, some of the storms produced tornadoes in Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. The image below shows the storm reports as relayed to the Storm Prediction Center from the day. Click on the image below to link to the SPC storm report web page for 10-26.

NWS IWX has confirmed 13 tornadoes in their county warning area (CWA) in northern Indiana and northwestern Ohio.

 

 

Below is the radar loop of the entire event as the storms moved across the forecast area. In the image below the radar loop, numerous couplets were seen at multiple times along this line. Every couplet circled was possible of producing a tornado and many of these couplets did produce tornadoes at one time or another in several different counties. At this instance or shortly after, both the Kosciusko County EF0 and extreme northwest Huntington County EF1 touched down.

 

 

(The loop will take a few moments to load.)

 

Click here for a detailed description of the meteorological setup.

 

1. Laporte County Indiana: EF1 (click for tornado information)

 

2. Wabash County Indiana: EF0 (click for tornado information)

 

3. Grant County Indiana: EF1 (click for tornado information)

 

4. Huntington County Indiana: EF1 (click for tornado information)

 

5. Kosciusko County Indiana: EF0 (click for tornado information)

 

6. Huntington County into Whitley County Indiana: EF0 (click for tornado information)

 

7. Whitley County Indiana: EF1 (click for tornado information)

 

8. Van Wert Ohio: EF0 (click for tornado information)

 

9. Allen County Indiana: EF1 (click for tornado information)

 

10. Allen County Indiana (Grabill): EF1 (click for tornado information)

 

11. Van Wert County into Paulding County Ohio: EF1 (click for tornado information)

 

12. Paulding County into Putnam County Ohio: EF1 (click for tornado information)

 

13. Allen County Ohio: EF0 (click for tornado information)

 

10/28/10 SLL/LF/SW/CEO