CUSTAR – Agencies have confirmed that a tornado touched down in Wood County
during strong storms early Thursday morning."It was very weak," said Wood County Emergency
Management Director Brad Gilbert, "and it just kind of bounced up and down and didn’t stay on the
ground."Gilbert said that an EF0 tornado – meaning a tornado ranking a zero on the Fujita tornado
scale – touched down in the Custar and Weston area."That’s the weakest one," said Gilbert,
"estimating right around 70 to 75 miles per hour, the winds."According to the National Weather
Service, a possible tornado was spotted in the Custar area around 12:10 a.m. along Ohio 281.Gilbert said
that "we did ground investigations and we found signs of some very mild rotation and based upon
some of the damage to some of the homes out there, it certainly indicated some kind of tornado activity,
instead of straight-line winds. Obviously there were a lot of straight line winds along with
it."The findings were discussed with the NWS Cleveland office.Gilbert said that the damage was
consistent with similar damage in Henry County, which also experienced an EF0 tornado confirmed by the
Northern Indiana NWS office.