F3 tornado, Tiffin, Ohio, November 10, 2002

1. F040 to 72 mph

   Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

2. F173 to 112 mph

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. F2113 to 157 mph

   Considerable damage. Roofs torn off well-built houses, frame homes shifted on their foundations, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, cars lifted off the ground.

4. F3158 to 206 mphthis tornado

   Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.

5. F4207 to 260 mph

   Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

6. F5261 to 318 mph

   Incredible damage. Strong frame houses swept off their foundations, car-sized missiles thrown more than 100 meters, steel-reinforced concrete badly damaged, high-rise buildings deformed.

7. Unrated

   The survey recorded a tornado but could not put a number on it, most often because it crossed open country and damaged nothing a rating can be read from.

Rating

F3

Date

November 10, 2002

Touchdown

5:15 PM EST (22:15 UTC)

Path length

21.0 miles (33.8 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

1

Injuries

2

Property damage

$13 million

County

Seneca County

Touchdown point

41.100, -83.170

Lift-off point

41.230, -82.900

Record number

931

An F1 tornado touched down southwest of Tiffin near the Seneca County Airport. The tornado moved east northeast and strengthened to F3 intesity as it crossed U.S. Highway 224 and moved into Tiffin. The Honey Creek subdivision along County Road 19 near US 224 was hard hit. Six homes on Nantucket Drive in the subdivision were destroyed and many other homes damaged. As the tornado continued across the southern part of Tiffin it leveled a business along State Route 231 and destroyed several homes on Siesta Drive just east of State Route 231. A retirement community along St. Francis Avenue and just north of Siesta Drive was also hard hit by the tornado. Eight homes in the community were destroyed with five more damaged enough to be declared uninhabitable. Another 25 homes sustained lesser amounts of damage and several cars were found lying upside down. The tornado weakened to F2 intensity as it crossed State Route 100 and moved over Greenlawn Cemetary. From the cemetary, the tornado began to move in more of a northeasterly direction and briefly weakened to F1 intensity as it passed to the east of Heidelburg College. The tornado reintensified to F2 as it crossed State Route 18 and continued northeast across open country where it damaged many more homes and buildings. The tornado reached strong F3 intensity for several miles to the northwest and north of Republic. A 24 year old male was killed and two other people seriously injured when a home in Scipio Township on County Road 38 near County Road 43 was swept off of it's foundation. Two other homes nearby were also leveled. The tornado remained on the ground for another ten miles and gradually weakened to F2 intensity. It finally lifted south of State Route 18 near Fireside. Later, the same parent thunderstorm spawned another tornado a few miles away in Huron County. Overall, this tornado destroyed 32 homes and businesses, heavily damaged another eight and slightly damaged around 70 homes in Seneca County. Dozens of cars were also damaged and destroyed with downed trees and power poles numbering in the hundreds. The damage path from this tornado was roughly 21 miles in length and over 200 yards in width at times.

The deaths

1 direct deaths are recorded for this tornado, each with what Storm Data knows of it.

From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.

13 minutes of warning. NWS CLE issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:02 UTC, 13 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 22:30 UTC.

Every warning and watch covering the touchdown point that day, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service products. Lead time is measured from the issue of the warning in force to the touchdown time in the database, both of which were recorded to the minute by different people.

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Slight Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:23 UTC.

SPC's Day 1 convective outlook as it stood when the tornado began, read at the touchdown point. The same archive is on the radar archive.

The radiosonde launches on either side of the tornado, from the nearest station that was launching then, drawn and analyzed the way Storm Lab does: the same diagram, the same parcel and shear definitions SPC's mesoanalysis uses.

The Cleveland radar (KCLE), 102 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:12 UTC.

Open the radar archive at this moment, over the track

Reflectivity and velocity, decoded from the Level II archive in the browser. Volumes take a few seconds to open the first time.

The live radar over the trackEvery 2002 tornado in OhioEvery tornado in Ohio since 1950Warnings in force in Ohio nowThe forecast where you are

63 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 64 of them

Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. Tornado counts rise through the record as reporting improved, so a year in the 1950s is not comparable with one today except for the strongest tornadoes, which were always noticed.

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.