EF3 tornado, Fayetteville, Indiana, March 8, 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 mph

   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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF3

Date

March 8, 2009

Touchdown

3:37 PM EDT (19:37 UTC)

Lifted

3:39 PM EDT (19:39 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

1.1 miles (1.7 km)

Path width

1,408 yards (1287 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

1

Property damage

$420,000

County

Lawrence County

Touchdown point

38.850, -86.606

Lift-off point

38.852, -86.587

Record number

0903081337-01

By late morning a warm front stretched approximately from low pressure over northeast Missouri through central Illinois to between Indianapolis and Fort Wayne, Indiana while the cold front trailed from the low into Oklahoma. At 1040 EST tornado watch number 49 was issued for much of western Indiana, much of Illinois, and locations south, effective until 1600 EST. National Weather Service radar showed scattered storms in the watch area in Indiana, better organized storms firing up over eastern Iowa and western Illinois, and an area of rain north of the warm front.||At 1400 EST radar showed a broken line of storms with isolated supercells and line segments extending from northern Indiana south-southwestward through southern Indiana into western Kentucky with an eastward movement at 40-45 knots along central and northern portions of the line. The thermodynamic environment was marginally unstable but becoming more unstable with time. Supporting factors for severe weather were: large-scale atmospheric ascent, forcing associated with an ejecting short wave trough, significant shear, and increasing sunshine along and behind the warm front as it lifted north.||At 1343 EST the first severe weather report occurred with a measured thunderstorm wind gust of 91 MPH in Vincennes in Knox county. An additional tornado watch, watch number 50, was issued at 1355 EST to cover the rest of Indiana east of watch number 49. At this point 90+ knot mid-level winds and 55+ knot 850 millibar winds were across the region. Portions of the watches were canceled starting shortly before 1600 EST.||By the end of the severe weather episode an EF3 tornado had touched down in Lawrence County just west of Bedford. Portions of Daviess county experienced wind gusts of 80 to 90 MPH, while Tippecanoe, Clinton and Howard Counties had gusts from 60 to 70 mph. Significant damage occurred to several homes and farms in Lawrence County.

This brief but powerful tornado had a steady track to the east-northeast, creating damage consistent of an EF3 strength tornado. A rating of EF3 corresponds with winds of 136 to 165 MPH. The maximum width of the tornado was approximately 1/8 mile. It completely destroyed the above ground portions of two homes, seriously damaged a trailer home, and created lesser damage to two other homes. It picked a full size school bus up, turned it around and onto its side, and moved it uphill onto the foundation of what had been an occupied home. The damage estimate is very rough.

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

0 minutes of warning. NWS IND issued a tornado warning for this county at 19:37 UTC, 0 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 20:04 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 18:56 UTC and running to 22:10 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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 16:26 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.

Bloomington (BMG), 33 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Indianapolis radar (KIND), 99 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 19:35 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

25 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.