2011 Tornadoes By Month/Intensity And Month/CWA

Here is a table showing tornadoes by month/intensity and tornadoes by month/county warning area for 2011.  There are 2 tornadoes that crossed CWA boundaries, 1 in May which moved from LMK into IND and 1 in June which moved from PAH into LMK. I gave each CWA a half point for those tornadoes in order to have a consistent total, but obviously in reality IND has had 18, LMK 31 and PAH 11.  Hopefully that makes sense.

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2011 Year In Review

As we move toward the end of 2011, I thought it would be prudent to post a summary of this year's tornadoes.  Here it is month by month.


February:

6 tornadoes occurred, all of them on the last day of the month.  An EF2 tornado cut a 14 mile swath in Dubois county, injuring 1 person.  A separate EF2 struck portions of Gibson and Pike counties.


April:

This was a quiet month for tornadoes until the 19th.  29 tornadoes struck the state on the 19th and into the 20th, the second most in a single outbreak.  This event was followed up on the 23rd by an EF0 tornado in Jackson county.  Three additional tornadoes struck the state on the 26th and 27th, one of them an EF2 which had a 5 mile path through Warrick county.  There were 33 tornadoes in total during April, making it our second most active month on record.


May:

May followed a similar trend as April with a quiet early and middle part of the month.  Then an EF1 tornado in Jasper county kicked things off on May 22.  EF0 tornadoes struck Huntington and Ripley and Dearborn counties on the 23rd.  After a 1 day break, another significant outbreak happened on May 25.  This outbreak produced 22 tornadoes, including several EF2's and an EF3 in Lawrence county.  The Lawrence county tornado began east of Bedford and moved northeast for about 7 miles before lifting.  In all, there were 25 tornadoes in May.


June:

Like the preceding months, much of June was quiet.  The first tornado was a brief EF0 in Perry county on the 19th.  Another tornado struck Harrison county on the 22nd.  Two more tornadoes occurred during the early morning hours of the 26th, bringing the monthly total to 4. 


July:

Only 1 tornado happened in July, a brief EF0 in Newton county on the 23rd.


September:

After nearly 2 months without a tornado, an EF1 hit Jennings county early on the 26th.  An EF0 struck Elkhart county the following day. 


November:

An EF1 tornado touched down in Orange county on the 14th, the only tornado during November.  This was the last tornado of the year, bringing the 2011 total to 72.

Map Of May 25 Tornadoes

Map Of April 19-20 Tornadoes

Map Of February 28 Tornadoes

I will be posting maps of our significant 2011 tornado outbreaks in the next several days.  Kicking things off, here is the February 28 outbreak:

Biggest Winter Tornado Outbreaks Since 1950

Here are some of our biggest tornado outbreaks between the Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox (roughly December 22-March 21).


February 25, 1956:  9 tornadoes struck central and southern Indiana, injuring 4 people.

March 6, 1956:  7 tornadoes struck northern Indiana with an additional tornado in southern Indiana.  1 person was killed and 35 were injured, mostly in Grant county where a F4 occurred.
 
February 10, 1959:  5 tornadoes hit central and southern Indiana, the strongest being F3 in Knox county.

March 6, 1961:  10 tornadoes occurred, injuring 8 people.

March 19, 1963:  4 tornadoes occurred with 3 of them being F2.  2 people were killed in Washington county.

March 12, 1976:  13 tornadoes struck mainly the northern half of the state, resulting in 2 fatalities and over 40 injuries.  This is the biggest winter tornado outbreak on record.

March 20, 1976:  Occurring barely a week after the March 12 outbreak, this event produced 8 tornadoes including a F4 in Tippecanoe county which tracked into Carroll county.  18 people were injured in all.

March 10, 1986:  8 tornadoes occurred, injuring 48 people.  Also, 1 person was killed in Hancock county.

January 7, 1989:  3 tornadoes struck southern Indiana, injuring 5 people.  One of them, rated F4, crossed from Illinois into Knox county.
 
January 29, 2008:  5 tornadoes touched down making it our biggest January tornado outbreak on record.
3 people were killed in 2 separate tornadoes, one of which affected parts of Knox/Gibson counties and the other in Clark county.

March 8, 2009:  5 tornadoes occurred including an EF3 in Lawrence county which caused 1 injury.

F/EF Scale Ratings By Time Of Day

Below is a graph showing tornado ratings by time of day for tornadoes from 1950-2010.  I've broken it down into six 4 hour time intervals for simplicity.  The graph is fairly self explanatory but there are a few things worth mentioning.  I decided to use Z time since Indiana lies in 2 time zones.  Secondly, this graph is only as accurate as the times given in the NCDC/SPC databases.  Thirdly, some tornadoes were not rated especially prior to the 1970's.  Those tornadoes are shown as "F?"  Finally, each tornado was grouped based on the START time of the tornado.  For example, a tornado starting at 1750z and ending at 1815z would be classified in the 1400z-1759z timeframe.





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Here are the same data as above in text form:


0200z-0559z:

F?:  6
F0/F1:  95
F2/F3:  64
F4/F5:  4

0600z-0959z:

F?:  0
F0/F1:  24
F2/F3:  28
F4/F5:  0

1000z-1359z:

F?:  3
F0/F1:  33
F2/F3:  19
F4/F5:  0

1400-1759z:

F?:  1
F0/F1:  63
F2/F3:  10
F4/F5:  0

1800z-2159z:

F?:  11
F0/F1:  223
F2/F3:  105
F4/F5:  13

2200z-0159z:

F?:  19
F0/F1:  370
F2/F3:  130
F4/F5:  15

2011 Tornado Map

Here is a map of our 2011 tornadoes, drawn to the best of my ability.

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December Tornadoes Per County Since 1950