NWS Confirms Tornado In Spencer/Perry Counties

We continue to add to our record setting tornado season as the NWS in Louisville has confirmed that an EF1 tornado touched down in Spencer and Perry counties on June 26.  Here are the details:


PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE LOUISVILLE KY
620 PM EDT MON JUN 27 2011  


...EF-1 TORNADO IN SPENCER AND PERRY COUNTIES IN INDIANA SUNDAY JUNE 
26 2011...


DAMAGE TYPE: TORNADO
BEGIN TIME:  2:12 AM CDT
END TIME:    2:17 AM CDT
BEGIN POINT: 0.7 MILE SOUTH OF ST. MEINRAD
END POINT:   2.3 MILES EAST OF ST. MEINRAD
EF SCALE:    EF-1
WIND SPEED:  95-100 MPH  
PATH LENGTH: 2.3 MILES
PATH WIDTH:  200 YARDS (MAXIMUM)
INJURIES:    0
FATALITIES:  0


NARRATIVE: THE TORNADO TOUCHED DOWN ON THE SOUTHERN END OF THE ST. 
MEINRAD SEMINARY GROUNDS...DESTROYING A CINDER BLOCK OUTBUILDING AND 
TAKING 100 FEET OF ROOFING OFF A LARGE METAL OUTBUILDING. THE 
TORNADO ALSO UPROOTED NUMEROUS TREES AND RIPPED SECTIONS OF ROOFING 
OFF SEVERAL OTHER BUILDINGS BEFORE MOVING OFF TO THE EAST-NORTHEAST. 
IT WEAKENED AS IT MOVED INTO FORESTED HILLS WHERE IT SNAPPED AND 
UPROOTED TREES ON A NARROWING PATH BEFORE LIFTING OFF CATNIP ROAD. 
  

NWS Confirms Tornado In Dubois County

The NWS in Louisville has confirmed that an EF1 tornado touched down in Dubois county in the early morning hours of June 26.  Here are the details:


PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE LOUISVILLE KY
221 PM EDT SUN JUN 26 2011     

..EF-1 TORNADO IN DUBOIS COUNTY EARLY ON JUNE 26 2011...UPDATED


DAMAGE TYPE: TORNADO
BEGIN TIME:  2:54 AM EDT
END TIME:    2:57 AM EDT
BEGIN POINT: 0.4 MILE NORTH OF DUFF
END POINT:   1.9 MILES SOUTHEAST OF DUFF
EF SCALE:    EF-1
WIND SPEED:  95 MPH  
PATH LENGTH: 2.2 MILES
PATH WIDTH:  130 YARDS
INJURIES:    0
FATALITIES:  0


NARRATIVE: IN AND AROUND DUFF SEVERAL HOMES HAD MINOR DAMAGE AND 
NUMEROUS SOFTWOOD AND HARDWOOD TREES WERE SNAPPED OR UPROOTED.
   

Most Frequent Tornado Days Since 1950

I have put together a list of the most frequent tornado days since 1950.  In other words, those calendar days which have produced at least one tornado most often.  Here are all of the days which have produced at least 5 times and I have also included the total number of tornadoes for each day.  Bold represents days which have had tornadoes in every decade with the exception of the current young decade.


April 20...5 days...22 tornadoes
April 28...5 days...5 tornadoes
May 14...5 days...10 tornadoes
May 18...5 days...9 tornadoes
May 25...5 days...10 tornadoes
May 26...7 days...13 tornadoes
May 27...7 days...10 tornadoes
May 28...6 days...11 tornadoes
May 30...7 days...35 tornadoes
May 31...6 days...10 tornadoes
June 4.....5 days...9 tornadoes
June 7.....5 days...13 tornadoes
June 8.....5 days...13 tornadoes
June 11...7 days...17 tornadoes
June 12...8 days...13 tornadoes
June 13...7 days...13 tornadoes
June 14...5 days...11 tornadoes
June 15...5 days...6 tornadoes
June 17...6 days...9 tornadoes
June 21...6 days...6 tornadoes
June 23...5 days...13 tornadoes
June 24...7 days...9 tornadoes
June 28...5 days...8 tornadoes
July 1......7 days...7 tornadoes
July 4......5 days...7 tornadoes
July 9......6 days...9 tornadoes


Interestingly, the day with the greatest number of tornadoes - June 2 - isn't on the list.  While only 3 June 2nds have produced tornadoes, a total of 46 tornadoes have occurred.

NWS Confirms Tornado In Harrison County

The NWS in Louisville has confirmed that an EF0 tornado touched down in Harrison county on June 22.  Here are the details:


PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT...CORRECTED WIND SPEED AND NARRATIVE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE LOUISVILLE KY
445 PM EDT THU JUN 23 2011
 
 
...BRIEF TORNADO CONFIRMED IN HARRISON COUNTY INDIANA ON THE EVENING 
OF JUNE 22 2011... 

 
DAMAGE TYPE: TORNADO
BEGIN TIME:  7:27 PM EDT
END TIME:    7:28 PM EDT 
BEGIN POINT: 1.5 MILES SOUTHEAST OF NEW MIDDLETOWN
END POINT:   1.5 MILES SOUTHEAST OF NEW MIDDLETOWN
EF SCALE:    EF-0
WIND SPEED:  70-75 MPH  
PATH LENGTH: ABOUT 600 YARDS
PATH WIDTH:  ABOUT 75 YARDS
INJURIES:    0
FATALITIES:  0 
  

NARRATIVE:   A SMALL AND BRIEF TORNADO TOUCHED DOWN ABOUT 1.5 MILES 
SOUTH TO SOUTHEAST OF NEW MIDDLETOWN IN HARRISON COUNTY INDIANA 
AROUND 7:27 PM EDT. THE INITIAL TOUCHDOWN POINT WAS IN THE 3900 
BLOCK OF ELIZABETH-NEW MIDDLETOWN ROAD. THE TORNADO DAMAGED A ROW OF 
TREES BEHIND A HOME AND REMOVED SOME FLASHING ON THE HOME. THE 
TORNADO APPARENTLY LIFTED AND CROSSED ELIZABETH-NEW MIDDLETOWN ROAD 
AND HEADED EAST INTO A WOODED AREA. THE TORNADO SNAPPED LARGE LIMBS 
FROM THE TREE CANOPY IN THIS AREA AND LIKELY WAS NOT IN TOTAL 
CONTACT WITH THE GROUND. THE TORNADO LASTED FOR A MINUTE OR LESS. 
THE TREE DAMAGE IS CONSISTENT WITH EF-0 DAMAGE WITH ESTIMATED WINDS 
OF 70-75 MPH.  

NWS Confirms Tornado In Perry County

Well, after going nearly 4 weeks since the last tornado in the state, the NWS in Louisville has confirmed a weak tornado touched down in Perry county on the morning of June 19.  Here are the details:


PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE LOUISVILLE KY
500 PM EDT MON JUN 20 2011

ONE WEAK SHORT-LIVED TORNADO CONFIRMED IN EXTREME NORTHEAST PERRY 
COUNTY INDIANA DURING THE MORNING OF SUNDAY JUNE 19 2011 BY A 
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE STORM SURVEY TEAM. 


DAMAGE TYPE: TORNADO
BEGIN TIME:  7:31 AM EDT
END TIME:    7:32 AM EDT 
BEGIN POINT: 1.3 MILES NORTH OF ORIOLE...OR 2.3 MILES SOUTH OF
             SULPHUR SPRINGS ALONG ROUTE 66 IN EXTREME NORTHEAST
             PERRY COUNTY
END POINT:   APPROXIMATELY SAME AS BEGIN POINT
EF SCALE:    EF-0 
WIND SPEED:  75-80 MPH 
PATH LENGTH: APPROXIMATELY 0.2 MILE 
PATH WIDTH:  60-70 YARDS 
INJURIES:    0 
FATALITIES:  0 
  

NARRATIVE: THE EF-0 TORNADO TOUCHED JUST WEST OF ROUTE 66...WHERE 
THE ROAD IS ORIENTED SOUTHWEST TO NORTHEAST IN EXTREME NORTHEAST 
PERRY COUNTY. OBSERVABLE DAMAGE WAS ALL TO TREES ON BOTH SIDES OF 
THE ROAD (MOSTLY SOFTWOOD) WITH 8 TO 10 TREES EITHER UPROOTED... 
BENT OVER...OR SNAPPED OFF. OTHER TREES CLUSTERED IN THE SAME 
LOCATION SHOWED NO VISIBLE DAMAGE. THE DAMAGE LENGTH WAS ESTIMATED
AT 0.2 MILE ALTHOUGH IF THERE WAS ANY TREE DAMAGE FARTHER EAST OF 
ROUTE 66...IT WAS INACCESSIBLE. THE WIDTH OF TREE DAMAGE WAS NARROW
BUT DEFINITIVE WITH NO DAMAGE NORTH OR SOUTH OF THIS AXIS ALONG 
ROUTE 66. NO STRUCTURAL DAMAGE WAS OBSERVED. 
  

June 20, 1942 Kokomo Tornado

I haven't done many posts about pre-1950 tornadoes so I will take a couple minutes to discuss the Kokomo area tornado of June 20, 1942.  This violent F4 tornado touched down in the early evening hours south of the tiny Clinton county community of Moran.  It moved east-northeast across northern Clinton county before entering Howard county and taking aim on Kokomo.  The tornado apparently reached maximum intensity in Kokomo where it killed 2 people and heavily damaged the south side of the city before dissipating shortly thereafter.  A total of 4 people lost their lives.  Interestingly, the track was very similar to the April 11, 1965 Palm Sunday tornado.

Here is a map of the approximate path of the tornado:

The meteorological setup was characterized by an upper level trough in the Lakes and a seasonably strong surface low which tracked across the southern Lakes.  Here are the 500 millibar and surface maps from 18z:



Source:

Thomas P. Grazulis, Significant Tornadoes 1680-1991 (Environmental Films, 1993).

Biggest Summer Tornado Outbreaks Since 1950

Although tornadoes can and do occur here during Summer, they do not happen as frequently and tend to be weaker than those in Spring.  This is mainly due to the fact that temperature gradients are less intense during Summer and thus the jet stream tends to be weaker and farther north.  This lack of stronger winds aloft is detrimental to the production of strong tornadoes, but they can still occur when conditions come together just right.

I have scanned the tornado database back to 1950 in order to establish our biggest summertime tornado outbreaks.  Here are some of the biggest outbreaks between the Summer Solstice and Autumn Equinox (roughly June 21-September 22).


June 26, 1973:  10 tornadoes struck the state, 9 of which occurred in central/southern Indiana.  The strongest was a F2 near Bloomington.

July 30, 1992:  6 tornadoes occurred, including an F2 in Morgan county and a F3 in Johnson county.  The Johnson county tornado had a path length of about 7 miles and injured 25 people.

September 20, 2002:  6 tornadoes happened with 4 of them rated F2 or higher.  The highlight of this event was the long track F3 tornado that started near Ellettsville and ended near Hartford City in Blackford county.  This impressive tornado had a path length of 112 miles, injured over 100 people and caused more than $100 million damage.    For more on this event, click here

June 23, 2010:  6 tornadoes occurred in northern Indiana, mostly in Elkhart county.  These tornadoes were spawned from a quasi-linear convective system which moved across the area.

August 9, 1969:  5 tornadoes occurred, the most significant being an early morning F3 in Indianapolis which injured 6 people.

September 19, 1988:  5 weak tornadoes struck various parts of the state, injuring 3 people.

July 26, 2005:  5 tornadoes occurred, including a F2 in Cass and Miami counties.  Nobody was injured.

June 27, 2008:  5 brief EF0 tornadoes occurred, one of which injured 2 people in Morgan county.


Special mention:  On July 9, 1980, a F4 tornado struck Rush county, killing 2 people.  Although there was only one other tornado on this date (a weak F0 near Crawfordsville), this event is significant because it is the only known F4 tornado to hit Indiana during the summer.

June 15, 1987 - When Pigs Fly

On June 15, 1987, a F1 tornado touched down northwest of Danville in Hendricks county.  Although this tornado was only on the ground for about a quarter mile, it struck a pig farm and tossed several pigs into the air.

Frequency Of Tornadoes From Remnants Of Tropical Systems

Yesterday was the 6 year anniversary of Tropical Storm Arlene's passage (or at least its remnants) through Indiana.  While these events can bring us heavy rain from time to time, they are usually fairly forgettable.  However, Arlene is a bit of a stand out because it produced 2 tornadoes south of Indianapolis.  That got me thinking - how often do tropical remnants produce tornadoes here?

In an attempt to answer that question, I scanned the National Hurricane Center's records since 1950 (since that is about the time that tornado record keeping began to improve).  It was assumed that a remnant tropical system would've at least needed to reach the latitude of Kentucky to have a substantial chance of producing a tornado in Indiana.  I found 23 such systems which I am not going to list here.  I then chose to narrow the criteria to systems in which the remnant circulation passed through Illinois or Indiana, thus achieving greater latitude and putting us along or east of the track.  I found 14 of those systems and they are listed below:


1960 Tropical Storm #1
1961 Hurricane Carla
1965 Hurricane Betsy
1968 Tropical Storm Cindy
1979 Hurricane Bob
1979 Tropical Storm Claudette
1988 Hurricane Gilbert
1995 Hurricane Erin
2005 Tropical Storm Arlene
2005 Hurricane Dennis
2005 Hurricane Katrina
2005 Hurricane Rita
2008 Hurricane Gustav
2008 Hurricane Ike


In order to determine whether these tropical events produced any tornadoes in our area, I examined tornado records to coincide with the general timeframe that the remnant circulation passed through the area.  In a few cases, tornadoes occurred 1 or 2 days after the remnants passed and it was determined that those tornadoes were caused by a different weather system.  Out of the 14 storms listed above, I can only find 2 storms which were undoubtedly directly responsible for tornado production in the state - Tropical Storm Arlene in 2005 and Hurricane Gustav in 2008.  As previously stated, the remnants of Arlene produced 2 tornadoes, while the remnants of Gustav generated a tornado in Jasper county.

A potential third tornado case is Hurricane Gilbert in 1988.  The remnants of Gilbert moved northeastward through Missouri and Illinois, apparently in association with a significant trough/low pressure system in the Midwest.  5 tornadoes occurred in central and southern Indiana, but it is unclear if these tornadoes were directly caused by Gilbert or the larger weather system.

I have drawn the approximate tracks of Gilbert, Arlene, and Gustav below.    

So, to answer the question of how frequent these types of tornadoes are...not very frequent.  Depending on whether one includes Gilbert, there are either 3 or 8 tornadoes and either figure computes to well less than 1% of Indiana's tornadoes occurring from the remnants of tropical systems.  It is possible if not probable that these events have been underreported to some extent, but the same is probably true for other tornadoes which means that the percentages wouldn't change much.  

Updated Information On May 25th Outbreak

The NWS in Indianapolis has confirmed 2 additional tornadoes from the May 25th outbreak, an EF1 near Terre Haute and an EF0 in Parke county.  Also, they have upgraded the Bedford area tornado to EF3.


Updated numbers for this year, which again are subject to change.

2/28:  6
4/19-4/20:  26
4/23:  1
5/22:  1
5/23:  2
5/25:  23


EF0:  20 (note:  2/28 Clark county tornado was rated EF0 in Indiana and EF1 in Kentucky)
EF1:  27
EF2:  11
EF3:  1
EF4:  0
EF5:  0

3 More Tornadoes Confirmed From May 25th Outbreak; Total Stands At 21

The NWS in Paducah has confirmed 3 more tornadoes from the May 25th outbreak.  One of them was an EF2 southeast of Oakland City in Pike county and the other two EF1's occurred simultaneously south of Winslow in Pike county.  It appears those two are being counted as separate tornadoes.

Updated numbers for this year:

2/28:  6
4/19-4/20:  26
4/23:  1
5/22:  1
5/23:  2
5/25:  21


EF0:  19 (note:  2/28 Clark county tornado was rated EF0 in Indiana and EF1 in Kentucky)
EF1:  26
EF2:  12
EF3:  0
EF4:  0
EF5:  0

June 5-6, 2010 Tornado Outbreak

Today marks the 1 year anniversary of the June 5-6 tornado outbreak.  Three tornadoes struck parts of White, Carroll, Cass and Miami counties, including an EF3 near Grissom Air Force Base.  We are fortunate that nobody was killed since these tornadoes occurred at night.

I traveled to all 3 damage paths and took some pictures.  Here are some of them.

What A Difference A Year Makes

In 2010 we didn't record our first tornado until June 4, and this year we've already broken the record for most tornadoes in a year. 

I have noticed that one year is often much different than the next when it comes to weather.  That has certainly been the case with respect to our severe weather season.

Tomorrow I will have a new post about the tornadoes of June 5, 2010.

Can A 100-Fatality Tornado Happen Here?

It has been nearly 2 weeks since a catastrophic tornado annihilated a significant chunk of Joplin, Missouri.  This stunning and tragic event has generated a lot of discussion in meteorological circles about why it was so deadly.  Now that I've had some time to gather information and reflect on this tornado, I thought I would share some thoughts.

I believe that several circumstances combined to make this tornado the deadliest in the "modern" era, or post-1953.  Here are some of them in no particular order:

1.  Rapid intensification - based on video/eyewitness reports/damage survey, this tornado rapidly morphed from a weak/small tornado into a monstrous wedge, and unfortunately this process happened right as the tornado was moving into Joplin.

2.  Poor visibility - by this I mean 2 things.  It appears the tornado was wrapped in rain from the vantage point of many of those in the path.  Also, the sheer size of the funnel may have been deceptive to an observer expecting to see a more traditional looking funnel.

3.  Exact track - although some loss of life with a tornado of this magnitude may be almost inevitable, it may have been less of a story if it tracked a few miles differently in either direction.  The path just happened to be directly over numerous residential areas.

4.  Wide swath of intense winds - Based on the damage survey, it seems as though a rather wide portion of the damage was in the EF3-EF5 range.  Typically this is enough to cause total or near total building failure and when that occurs, the odds of survival decrease.


We can't blame this outcome on a lack of warning.  The local NWS office issued a tornado warning with acceptable lead time and, in my opinion, did the best they could given the rapidly unfolding situation.  Had the warning not come until later, even more people may have died.  I truly believe this was mostly a case of bad luck, where a series of circumstances came together in just the right (or in this case wrong) way.

Great strides have been made in reducing the number of mass casualty tornado events, but I knew a day like this was only a matter of time.  I did not think it would happen in this manner though.  I really thought we had come far enough so that the next deadly tornado of this magnitude would only occur if it plowed through a major city or a crowded outdoor event like the Indy 500.  The Joplin event obviously throws that thinking out the window.  I think we can learn some lessons from this event; not only that, we should look to the past to get a sense of where these particularly fatal tornadoes have occurred and what the circumstances were.  This will help us answer the question:  Can it happen here?

The Joplin tornado is the 15th tornado on record to kill at least 100 people in the U.S. and the first since 1953.  Here are the paths of all of these tornadoes (drawn to the best of my ability) and the years in which they occurred:

    

There are a couple things that stand out.  Most of these tornadoes occurred in the 1800's or first half of the 1900's, and a majority of them have occurred east of the Plains.  In fact, 10 out of 15 have taken place roughly along/east of the Mississippi River.  The 1925 Tri-State tornado killed over 70 people in Indiana, making it the state's deadliest tornado to date.

Most of the 100+ fatality tornadoes passed through cities/large towns or had extremely bad luck associated with them (for example, a majority of the deaths in the 1840 Natchez, Mississippi tornado were boaters on the Mississippi River).  Historical records are sketchy and possibly inaccurate, but based on the available information, these tornadoes had path widths anywhere between a half mile to almost 2 miles.  So...intense, wide tornadoes tracking through highly populated areas seem to be the most likely candidates.  Using SPC's Severeplot 3.0, I searched the Indiana records for these types of tornadoes.  Here are the F4/F5 tornadoes with an average path width of at least a half mile (the blue boxes are explained below) since 1950:

 


Almost all of the wide, violent tornadoes occurred on April 11, 1965 and April 3, 1974.  It's not a coincidence that those are 2 of our deadliest outbreaks.  The blue boxes depict locations of greater population.  Using historical cases, I believe that in order for a tornado to kill at least 100 people, it would likely have to pass through one of the boxes.  That is NOT to say that any violent tornado that passes through there is going to kill that many people (thankfully!) but a tornado in those areas with circumstances similar to Joplin is one I would be very concerned about.

As you can see, we have been pretty lucky in terms of massive tornadoes avoiding those boxes, at least since 1950.  We can be sure that our luck will run out one day, but hopefully we don't have to face anything on the scale of Joplin anytime soon.  Given our ever increasing population, though, it is a possibility.  The good news is that statistically speaking, these extreme killers are very rare and hopefully they stay that way.

June 2, 1990 Tornado Outbreak - Biggest On Record

Today marks the anniversary of our biggest tornado outbreak on record.  Although it wasn't as devastating as the Palm Sunday Outbreak or the Super Outbreak, this event is notable for a few reasons.  First, 37 tornadoes set a new record for most tornadoes in a single outbreak.  Second, 20 of the 37 tornadoes were rated F2 or greater.  To put that in some perspective, it "normally" takes 3 or 4 years to accumulate that many strong tornadoes.  Third, this event produced multiple violent F4's, joining 4/11/1965 and 4/3/1974 as the only days with multiple violent tornadoes in the state (since 1950).  Unfortunately, 8 people were killed.

Here is a map of the approximate tornado tracks:

Here are some images courtesy of Nick Smith:




June 2, 1990 Convective Outlook

   



Early Evening Radar Depicting Scattered Supercells



June Tornadoes Per County Since 1950