Along with thousands of people losing power across the county and beyond, the storm that swept through Kosciusko County late Monday night and into early Tuesday morning fell a number of trees, resulting in some damage to cars, homes and other property.
Kyle Brown, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Syracuse, said the “notable storm event” was a derecho that tracked 250 miles of wind damage.
“A derecho is the term to describe this line of thunderstorms,” he said. Tornadoes can happen within a derecho, but the NWS had not confirmed any tornado in Kosciusko County as of midday Tuesday. The NWS was gathering information throughout the day.

    The Warsaw Street Department was busy this morning cleaning up damage on Lake Street, north of Fort Wayne Street. Photo by Gary Nieter, Times-Union
  

Damage caused during a storm may look like it was caused by a tornado, but if everything is facing the same direction, that’s not damage from a tornado.
An EF-0 tornado was confirmed southeast of Tippecanoe in Marshall County between 12:09 and 12:11 a.m. Tuesday for 75 yards with an estimated peak wind speed of 75 mph.
An EF-1 was confirmed in Elkhart in Elkhart County between 12:21 and 12:23 a.m. Tuesday for 1.19 miles with an estimated peak wind speed of 90 mph.
No injuries or deaths were reported in relation to the tornadoes.
Most reports of the storm started coming into the NWS for Kosciusko County between midnight and 1 a.m. Tuesday, Brown said. The whole linear complex of the storm started over Iowa and raced eastward from northern Illinois into southwest lower Michigan and northern Indiana. The further east the storm went, the more sporadic it became as it weakened, Brown said. The most damage was caused out west.
Warsaw Public Works and Street Superintendent Dustin Dillon said the broadest band of the storm damage for the city began on the northwest side of Warsaw - Union, Columbia and Washington streets and east of The Grove housing development - and went east.
The first call for downed trees came in around 1:30 a.m. Tuesday, reporting two trees down on Harrison and Dubois streets. Three or four trees came down on North Lake Street. Another six to eight trees fell in the northwest corner of the city.

    A fallen tree from the overnight storm stretches across Lake Street, north of Fort Wayne Street. Photo by Gary Nieter, Times-Union
  

“The winds were just that strong,” Dillon said. Some of the trees had hollow spots, but he said for the most part the trees just got twisted and broke. A tree on North Lake Street was uprooted by its roots.
Brown said the NWS has seen quite a bit of uprooted trees. “They’re a byproduct of the rains we’ve had over the last week,” from hurricane Beryl, that has left the soil soft and wet and making it easy for trees to be uprooted.
The strongest recorded wind in Kosciusko County during the Tuesday’s early morning storm was 59 mph in Burket, he said. As for precipitation, Brown said the NWS only recorded about two-tenths of an inch of rain. The heaviest rains were confined to Michigan.

    A tree at Lucerne Park in Warsaw was snapped in half during early Tuesday’s morning storm. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union
  

Warsaw Parks and Recreation Department Superintendent Larry Plummer said they had limbs down at Central, Municipal and Bixler parks. Half a tree was damaged at Biblical Gardens. Multiple trees were down at Lucerne Park, making it look like a disaster. Hire Park had a small tree come down, while Beyer Park had limbs down. A tree was uprooted at Pike Lake, while two trees were across the boardwalk on Beyer Farm Trail. The Pike Lake Campground had limbs down.
Plummer said there was no physical damage to any of the parks buildings, but crews will be working throughout the next week to get the parks clean and safe for the public’s use.
Residents were asked to avoid Oakwood Cemetery Tuesday as multiple trees were down there, too, and crews were working to get large debris cleared from the cemetery grounds.
While residents began picking up sticks and limbs in their yards Tuesday, Dillon said his department will probably be doing clean-up off and on through the week. They do have to wait for NIPSCO and Brightspeed to address power lines and cable lines that got tangled up in some trees. Some clean-up may be delayed because insurance companies have to document damage done to property.
“It was a pretty significant storm,” Dillon said.
For more and updated information on the storm from the NWS, visit weather.gov/iwx.