F1 tornado, (Huf)Hulman Fld Tere, Indiana, February 16, 2006

1. F040 to 72 mph

   Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

2. F173 to 112 mphthis tornado

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. F2113 to 157 mph

   Considerable damage. Roofs torn off well-built houses, frame homes shifted on their foundations, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, cars lifted off the ground.

4. F3158 to 206 mph

   Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.

5. F4207 to 260 mph

   Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

6. F5261 to 318 mph

   Incredible damage. Strong frame houses swept off their foundations, car-sized missiles thrown more than 100 meters, steel-reinforced concrete badly damaged, high-rise buildings deformed.

7. Unrated

   The survey recorded a tornado but could not put a number on it, most often because it crossed open country and damaged nothing a rating can be read from.

Rating

F1

Date

February 16, 2006

Touchdown

7:54 PM EST (00:54 UTC)

Path length

4.2 miles (6.8 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$1.5 million

County

Vigo County

Touchdown point

39.430, -87.370

Lift-off point

39.450, -87.300

Record number

58

A large squall line containing several bowing segments moved through central Indiana on the evening of 16 February 2006. What was likely an embedded supercell structure produced an F1 tornado near Terre Haute in Vigo County, with widespread straight line wind damage occurring elsewhere along the line as it moved from west to east. The Vigo County tornado was the first February tornado in Indiana in almost exactly fourteen years.

A tornado touched down just north of Interstate 70, and west of the Margaret Avenue and Fruitridge Avenue intersection, and traveled northeastward. Along its path, the tornado severely damaged Union Christian Church at State Road 46 and Hulman Drive, and at least 18 buildings and 6 planes at the Terre Haute International Airport, including the Ivy Tech State College building on the airport campus, where three people were trapped as emergency crews waited for power to be shut off before removing them from the building.A preliminary search indicated that this was the first tornado in Vigo county in just over thirteen years, and the first February tornado in Indiana in fourteen years and one day.

From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 21:59 UTC and running to 01:52 UTC.

Every warning and watch covering the touchdown point that day, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service products. Lead time is measured from the issue of the warning in force to the touchdown time in the database, both of which were recorded to the minute by different people.

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:52 UTC.

SPC's Day 1 convective outlook as it stood when the tornado began, read at the touchdown point. The same archive is on the radar archive.

The radiosonde launches on either side of the tornado, from the nearest station that was launching then, drawn and analyzed the way Storm Lab does: the same diagram, the same parcel and shear definitions SPC's mesoanalysis uses.

Terre Haute (HUF), 3 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The Indianapolis radar (KIND), 95 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:53 UTC.

Open the radar archive at this moment, over the track

Reflectivity and velocity, decoded from the Level II archive in the browser. Volumes take a few seconds to open the first time.

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

The live radar over the trackEvery 2006 tornado in IndianaEvery tornado in Indiana since 1950Warnings in force in Indiana nowThe forecast where you are

3 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. Tornado counts rise through the record as reporting improved, so a year in the 1950s is not comparable with one today except for the strongest tornadoes, which were always noticed.

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.