Tornadoes in Indiana, October 24, 2001

Name: Tornadoes in Indiana, October 24, 2001
Start: 2001-10-24T17:00
End: 2001-10-24T17:28
Location: Indiana

October 24, 2001 · NWS IWX · 3 events in 3 counties and zones

Where it happened

Every event with a place to put it. Tap one for its entry below.

Tornadoes
Tropical storms and surge
Floods
Wind
Hail
Winter weather
Heat and drought
Cold
Fire, smoke and dust
Marine and coastal
Other

Open the live radar over this ground

The toll

Deaths: 0
Injuries: 0
Property damage: $2.2 million
Crop damage: None recorded
Events: 3

Deaths and injuries are direct and indirect together, as the offices filed them. Damage is property and crops in the dollars of the year, not adjusted for inflation, and only where an office estimated it.

What happened

The episode as NWS IWX wrote it up.

On Wednesday 10/24/01 a surface low pressure system tracked rapidly northeast from the mid Mississippi Valley to northern Lake Michigan and deepened significantly. The accompanying cold front surged east from the Mississippi Valley during the afternoon to southeast Michigan and western Ohio in the evening. The deepening surface low was the result of a negatively tilted upper level trough approaching the Mississippi Valley. The air mass ahead of the cold front was quite unstable with lifted indices around -5C and surface dewpoints of 65-70F. Strong veering wind fields were over the area with 20-30kt S-SSE flow at the surface veering rapidly in the low levels to southwest at 45kts, then remaining unidirectional above with wind speeds increasing to 65kt at 20,000 ft. An area of Thunderstorms across Illinois in the early afternoon formed into a line as they moved into northwest Indiana. Two strong bow echoes developed over northwest and north central Indiana during the late afternoon and moved northeast at 50 MPH into southern Michigan. Numerous tornadoes occurred in the comma heads of the bow echoes. Isolated supercells ahead of the main squall line produced little severe weather except for a tornado that occurred over northwest Ohio in the evening when the squall line merged with a supercell.

What forecasters said that day

The local office's own words before the first event, as it sent them, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service text.

NWS Northern Indiana wrote its last area forecast discussion before the first event at Oct 24, 2:30 PM EST, 2 hours 30 minutes earlier.

Area forecast discussion, Oct 24, 2:30 PM EST, 2 hours 30 minutes before

AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NORTHERN INDIANA
230 PM EST WED OCT 24 2001

SQUALL LINE APPROACHING WRN CWA AND WILL MOVE ACROSS ENTIRE CWA
EARLY TNGT. MUCH COLDER BEHIND FRONT WITH SFC LOW CRANKING UP
OVER ERN LAKES THURSDAY INTO FRI. SFC GRAD IN ALL MDLS AND MOS
SUPPORT HIGH WIND WARNING NRN 2/3 CWA LATER TNT AND THURSDAY WITH
ADVISORY CRITERIA SOUTH. AFTER STORMS TNGT COLD AIR POURS
ACROSS LAKES BUT WITH SUCH STRONG WIND FIELDS TIME OVER LAKE WATERS
WILL BE DIMINISHED AND SHOULD HELP TO KEEP ACTIVITY FROM GETTING
OUT OF HAND. WILL CONTINUE CLDS...WINDS AND SHWRS INTO SAT AND THEN
BEGIN SLOW WARMUP INTO NEXT WEEK. BLEND OF MOS TMPS TOWARD
COOLER MAVS.

.IWX...HIGH WIND WARNING LATE TNGT AND THURSDAY NRN 2/3 CWA
       WIND ADVISORY LATE TNGT AND THURSDAY SRN 1/3 CWA

RES

In the hours before

Local storm report, Oct 24, 4:21 PM EST, 39 minutes before

PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NORTHERN INDIANA
421 PM EST WED OCT 24 2001

TIME(EST)  .....CITY LOCATION..... STATE  ...EVENT/REMARKS...
           ....COUNTY LOCATION....

0417 PM    2 W OSCEOLA               IN   ESTIMATED 60 MPH TSTM GUST
10/24/01   ST.JOSEPH                      REPORTED BY STORM
                                          SPOTTER. TREES AND
                                          TELEPHONE POLES DOWN.

Local storm report, Oct 24, 4:30 PM EST, 30 minutes before

PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NORTHERN INDIANA
430 PM EST WED OCT 24 2001

TIME(EST)  .....CITY LOCATION..... STATE  ...EVENT/REMARKS...
           ....COUNTY LOCATION....

0423 PM    3 S OSCEOLA               IN   WIND DAMAGE. TREES DOWN.
10/24/01   ST.JOSEPH                      REPORTED BY HAM RADIO
           ELKHART                        OPERATOR.

Local storm report, Oct 24, 4:33 PM EST, 27 minutes before

PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NORTHERN INDIANA
433 PM EST WED OCT 24 2001

TIME(EST)  .....CITY LOCATION..... STATE  ...EVENT/REMARKS...
           ....COUNTY LOCATION....

0400 PM    BUCHANON                  MI   WIND DAMAGE
10/24/01   BERRIEN                        TREES DOWN. REPORTED BY
                                          LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIAL.

0400 PM    NILES                     MI   WIND DAMAGE
10/24/01   BERRIEN                        TREES DOWN. REPORTED BY
                                          LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIAL.

Local storm report, Oct 24, 4:37 PM EST, 23 minutes before

PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NORTHERN INDIANA
437 PM EST WED OCT 24 2001

TIME(EST)  .....CITY LOCATION..... STATE  ...EVENT/REMARKS...
           ....COUNTY LOCATION....

0435 PM    PARK SHR RESORT           MI   WIND DAMAGE
10/24/01   CASS                           *** 1 INJ ***
                                          TREE FELL DOWN ONTO CAR AT
                                          DIAMOND LAKE. REPORTED
                                          BY HAM RADIO OPERATOR.

Local storm report, Oct 24, 4:40 PM EST, 20 minutes before

PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NORTHERN INDIANA
440 PM EST WED OCT 24 2001

TIME(EST)  .....CITY LOCATION..... STATE  ...EVENT/REMARKS...
           ....COUNTY LOCATION....

0410 PM    CASSOPOLIS                MI   WIDESPREAD WIND DAMAGE
10/24/01   CASS                           COUNTYWIDE

0440 PM    2 N NORTH WEBSTER         IN   .75 INCH HAIL
10/24/01   KOSCIUSKO                      REPORTED AT THE SYRACUSE
                                          NWS FORECAST OFFICE

Local storm report, Oct 24, 4:49 PM EST, 11 minutes before

PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NORTHERN INDIANA
449 PM EST WED OCT 24 2001

TIME(EST)  .....CITY LOCATION..... STATE  ...EVENT/REMARKS...
           ....COUNTY LOCATION....

0448 PM    2 W CONVERSE              IN   1 INCH HAIL
10/24/01   MIAMI                          REPORTED BY STORM
                                          SPOTTER.

The radar

The Northern Indiana radar (KIWX), 39 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the first event began at 22:00 UTC.

Open the radar archive at this moment

Event by event

3 tornado. Local standard time, as filed.

Tornado, Noble

When: October 24, 5:00 PM EST to 5:11 PM EST
Where: Noble County, 1 mi E of Kendallville
Rating: F1
Path length: 4 mi
Path width: 300 yd
Property damage: $1.1 million
Reported by: NWS STORM SURVEY
Coordinates: 41.450, -85.250

Tornado, De Kalb

When: October 24, 5:11 PM EST to 5:26 PM EST
Where: De Kalb County, 3 mi NW of Corunna
Rating: F2
Path length: 7 mi
Path width: 440 yd
Property damage: $1.0 million
Reported by: NWS STORM SURVEY
Coordinates: 41.467, -85.200

Tornado, Steuben

When: October 24, 5:26 PM EST to 5:28 PM EST
Where: Steuben County, 1 mi S of Steubenville
Rating: F0
Path length: 1.5 mi
Path width: 150 yd
Property damage: $20,000
Reported by: NWS STORM SURVEY
Coordinates: 41.533, -85.017

Tornado touched down east of Kendallville with F1 damage to homes and warehouses in and near the Kendallville East Industrial park. Tornado then moved northeast into Dekalb county where F2 damage occurred around Fairfield Center with significant damage to homes. Then tornado moved southeast of Ashley with F1 damage and then moved into Steuben county south of Steubenville doing F0 damage to a barn before lifting north of Steubenville.

What these are

Tornado: A violently rotating column of air in contact with the ground and extending from a thunderstorm, filed with its path, width and Fujita or Enhanced Fujita rating from the damage survey.

After NWS Directive 10-1605, the rules offices file Storm Data by.

The same day elsewhere

Every storm in Indiana in 2001 Every state in 2001 This day in weather history The tornado archive for Indiana, 2001 Warnings in Indiana, October 2001

Sources

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database, compiled from the National Weather Service’s monthly Storm Data. Complete through 2026-06; NCEI adds each month about 75 days after it ends and revises past years a few times a year. Rebuilt 2026-09-24. Each event’s entry at NCEI: 5270647, 5270648, 5270649.