Tornadoes · United States · Indiana · 2006

F0 tornado, Brownsburg, Indiana, March 31, 2006

This F0 tornado ran 2.0 miles across Hendricks County on March 31, 2006, touching down at 6:39 PM EST and reaching 75 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $50,000 of property damage.

The rating scale

Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.

  1. F040 to 72 mphthis tornado

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

  2. F173 to 112 mph

    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.

The record

Rating
F0
Date
March 31, 2006
Touchdown
6:39 PM EST (23:39 UTC)
Path length
2.0 miles (3.2 km)
Path width
75 yards (69 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$50,000
County
Hendricks County
Touchdown point
39.850, -86.480
Lift-off point
39.850, -86.450
Record number
204

What the Weather Service recorded

Severe thunderstorms which formed over northwest central Indiana quickly transitioned to a powerful and expanding squall line with embedded supercells that moved southeast through central Indiana during the afternoon and evening of 31 March 2006. Two tornadoes touched down in the 9-county Indianapolis metropolitan area, one of which was on the ground for 17 miles and did an estimated 8 million dollars in damage.

A small tornado touched down near Brownsburg on 31 March 2006. Damage was confined mostly to outbuildings and trees.

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

The warnings

0 minutes of warning. NWS IND issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:39 UTC, 0 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:01 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:47 UTC and running to 02:16 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
20:47 UTC02:16 UTCTornado WatchIND
23:27 UTC00:00 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningIND
23:39 UTC00:01 UTCTornado WarningIND

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 forecast that day

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 20:03 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 air that afternoon

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.

Lincoln, IL (KILX), 12:00Z

11.7 hours before the tornado, 185 km from the path. March 31, 2006.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Lincoln, IL at 12:00Z on 2006-03-31Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 0 joules per kilogram, CIN -94017, lifted condensation level 1311 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Lincoln, IL at 12:00Z on 2006-03-31The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 43 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 65 knots.1939587897Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-94017 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1311 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
65 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
36 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
43 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
79 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.9 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Lincoln, IL (KILX), 00:00Z

0.3 hours after it, 185 km from the path. April 1, 2006.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Lincoln, IL at 00:00Z on 2006-04-01Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 0 joules per kilogram, CIN -70530, lifted condensation level 1502 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Lincoln, IL at 00:00Z on 2006-04-01The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 83 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 34 knots.19395878Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-70530 J/kg
Surface CAPE
2 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1502 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
34 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
20 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
83 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
134 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
6.3 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Indianapolis radar (KIND), 22 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:40 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.

What was reported nearby

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

Time (UTC)ReportWhereCountyRemark
22:38 UTCHAIL 0.75MulberryClinton, IN
22:45 UTCHAIL 0.887 Se RossvilleClinton, IN
22:55 UTCHAIL 0.75CrawfordsvilleMontgomery, IN
22:59 UTCHAIL 1ThorntownBoone, INQUARTER SIZE HAIL FALLING AROUND NW CORNER OF COUNTY FOR 15 MINUTES
23:33 UTCHAIL 0.75GreencastlePutnam, IN
23:35 UTCHAIL 1GreencastlePutnam, IN
23:36 UTCHAIL 1SheridanHamilton, IN
23:40 UTCFUNNEL CLOUD1 W BrownsburgHendricks, IN
23:42 UTCTSTM WND DMG8 Ne DanvilleHendricks, IN24 INCH DIAMTER TRE AND ROOF SHEETING 90 DEGREES APART
23:42 UTCTSTM WND DMG8 Ne DanvilleHendricks, INDEAD TREE 20 INCH DIAMETER DOWN
23:42 UTCHAIL 0.752 W CloverdalePutnam, IN
23:48 UTCHAIL 1MooresvilleMorgan, IN
23:49 UTCHAIL 1MooresvilleMorgan, IN
23:50 UTCHAIL 16 N NoblesvilleHamilton, IN
23:52 UTCHAIL 16 Sw CloverdaleOwen, IN
23:53 UTCHAIL 1.75CloverdalePutnam, INI70 AT MILE MARKER 39
00:10 UTCTSTM WND GST 61IndianapolisMarion, IN
00:23 UTCHAIL 0.753 Se IndianapolisMarion, IN
00:29 UTCTORNADO1 E GreenwoodJohnson, INI65 99 MILE MARKER NEAR MAIN STREET...TORNADO HAS BEEN SPOTTED ON THE GROUND
00:30 UTCHAIL 1FranklinJohnson, IN
00:39 UTCTORNADO11 Nw ShelbyvilleShelby, INI74 AND LONDON RD TORNADO SPOTTED ON THE GROUND

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

This ground now

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

The other tornadoes of March 31, 2006

3 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
March 316:05 PM ESTF1Jackson, MI7.065$200,000
March 317:20 PM ESTF2Johnson, IN17.07001$8.0 million
March 317:38 PM ESTF2Van Wert, OH2.0300$1.0 million

What this means

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.

Sources

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