EF1 tornado, Eminence, Indiana, August 4, 2009

1. EF065 to 85 mph

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

2. EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado

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

3. EF2111 to 135 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. EF3136 to 165 mph

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

5. EF4166 to 200 mph

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

6. EF5over 200 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

EF1

Date

August 4, 2009

Touchdown

12:10 PM EDT (16:10 UTC)

Lifted

12:11 PM EDT (16:11 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.2 miles (0.3 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$85,000

Crop damage

$500

County

Morgan County

Touchdown point

39.523, -86.643

Lift-off point

39.522, -86.639

Record number

0908041010-01

All modes of severe weather were noted during this event. Hail was the primary threat from the scattered early event storms. Then, the bow echo pushed across Central Indiana producing widespread wind damage. A brief tornado even caused some damage where the bow echo met the east-west orientated line of scattered storms in Central Indiana. Heavy rain and flooding, some of it flash flooding, were also widely observed across the region.

A representative from the National Weather Service reclassified the damage in Eminence to be from a weak tornado. The damage began on the west side of Back Street, where corn stalks were pressed down and pointing towards the east-northeast. The damage continued eastward across the street where a tied-down, single-wide mobile home was flipped over and destroyed. More damage was found across State Road 42 where much of a large tree was downed and another mobile home was damaged and unlivable. The track continued east where a home on North Forest Street was destroyed as its roof was totally lifted and spread downstream about 100 yards. A garage located just behind this house had its roof collapsed and debris located just behind it. Winds were estimated near 105 miles per hour, placing the damage as EF1 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale.

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 severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 13:41 UTC and running to 18:32 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 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 12:54 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.

Indianapolis (IND), 35 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Indianapolis radar (KIND), 37 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 16:11 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 2009 tornado in IndianaEvery tornado in Indiana since 1950Warnings in force in Indiana nowThe forecast where you are

1 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.