Tornadoes · United States · Indiana · 2009
EF1 tornado, Medford, Indiana, February 11, 2009
This EF1 tornado ran 0.1 miles across Delaware County on February 11, 2009, touching down at 3:30 PM EST and reaching 100 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $13,000 of property damage.
The rating scale
Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Enhanced Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.
EF065 to 85 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
EF4166 to 200 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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
- EF1
- Date
- February 11, 2009
- Touchdown
- 3:30 PM EST (20:30 UTC)
- Lifted
- 3:31 PM EST (20:31 UTC)
- On the ground
- 1 minutes
- Path length
- 0.1 miles (0.2 km)
- Path width
- 100 yards (91 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $13,000
- County
- Delaware County
- Touchdown point
- 40.112, -85.328
- Lift-off point
- 40.114, -85.327
- Record number
- 0902111430-01
What the Weather Service recorded
Mainly non-thunderstorm winds occurred during the afternoon and evening hours of February 11th. A High Wind Warning was in effect for the day as well as portions of the days on either side. A strong low pressure system moved across Illinois and northern Indiana with a trailing cold front that passed through Indiana. An intense pressure gradient ahead of the front and strong pressure rises behind the front caused very strong winds to blow. A saturated ground from recent snow melt and new rainfall may have contributed to the reports of downed trees.
An EF1 tornado very briefly occurred near near South County Road 300 East and East County Road 550 South. The tornado dislodged a barn roof and damaged the roof of a single family home across the street.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 13:02 UTC | 14:30 UTC | Flood Advisory | IND |
| 14:20 UTC | 20:32 UTC | Flood Warning | IND |
| 15:00 UTC | 06:00 UTC | High Wind Warning | IND |
| 15:00 UTC | 19:37 UTC | High Wind Watch | IND |
| 00:28 UTC | 02:59 UTC | Flood Warning | IND |
| 03:13 UTC | 06:18 UTC | Flood Advisory | IND |
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 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 20:02 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.
Cncnati-Daytn, OH (KILN), 12:00Z
8.5 hours before the tornado, 151 km from the path. February 11, 2009.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -55460 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 622 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 58 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 47 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 468 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 468 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.3 K/km
Cncnati-Daytn, OH (KILN), 00:00Z
3.5 hours after it, 151 km from the path. February 12, 2009.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 1 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -41 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 22 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1201 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 66 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 53 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 411 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 488 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 6.9 K/km
The radar
The Indianapolis radar (KIND), 93 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:29 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) | Report | Where | County | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19:23 UTC | HEAVY RAIN 1.5 | Alexandria | Madison, IN | |
| 20:09 UTC | FLOOD | 1 S Arcana | Grant, IN | WATER OVER ROAD BETWEEN 100 S AND 200 S ON STATE ROUTE 5. |
| 20:25 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 8 Se Muncie | Delaware, IN | BARN AND HOUSE DAMAGED NEAR PRARIE CREEK RESERVOIR. |
| 20:25 UTC | FLOOD | Alexandria | Madison, IN | PIPE CREEK WITHIN ONE FOOT OF BRIDGE. OTHER SMALL STREAMS OUT OF BANKS. |
| 20:40 UTC | TORNADO | 5 E Muncie | Delaware, IN | EF1 TORNADO NEAR COUNTY ROADS 4750 EAST AND 550 SOUTH. THE TORNADO WAS ESTIMATED TO BE ABOUT 100 FEET WIDE AND ON THE GROUND FOR ABOUT TWO TENTHS OF A MILE. THE TORNADO DISLODGED A BARN ROOF AND DAMAGED THE ROOF OF A SIN |
| 22:13 UTC | NON-TSTM WND DMG | Rushville | Rush, IN | SPORADIC TREES AND POWER LINES DOWN ON ROADS AROUND COUNTY. UTILITY POLE IN THE ROAD AT CR 650N AND CR 50W. |
| 22:46 UTC | NON-TSTM WND DMG | Greenfield | Hancock, IN | NUMEROUS TREES AND POWER LINES DOWN THROUGHOUT THE COUNTY AND IN THE CITY OF GREENFIELD. |
| 22:50 UTC | NON-TSTM WND GST 56 | 2 Nw Straughn | Henry, IN | |
| 23:03 UTC | HAIL 0.25 | Dunkirk | Jay, IN |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2009 tornado in IndianaEvery tornado in Indiana since 1950Warnings in force in Indiana nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of February 11, 2009
4 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| February 11 | 1:04 AM CST | EF1 | De Soto Parish, LA | 1.5 | 150 | $150,000 | ||
| February 11 | 2:03 PM CST | EF1 | Fentress, TN | 0.5 | 75 | $50,000 | ||
| February 11 | 5:59 PM EST | EF0 | Russell, VA | 4.2 | 200 | $30,000 | ||
| February 11 | 1:05 PM HST | EF0 | Honolulu, HI | 0.4 | 15 | 1 |
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.