April Nocturnal Tornadoes

With the upcoming significant storm and possible nighttime tornado threat, I decided to scan the records to see how many of our April tornadoes have occurred at night.  For purposes of this research, I defined the nocturnal period as the hours between 2100-0600.

Since 1950, there have been 228 April tornadoes in the state.  43 out of 228 occurred between 2100-0600 which comes out to 18.9%.  The 9 hour period makes up 37.5% of a day so it is clear that a majority of our tornadoes occur during daylight. 

The most recent April nocturnal tornado struck Decatur county in 2006.  The worst nocturnal tornado was the tornado that touched down near West Lafayette around midnight on April 26-27, 1994.  It took 3 lives and injured dozens more.     

I will have more on the upcoming storm system in a post later tonight...