EF2 tornado, Owensville to Velpen, Indiana, February 28, 2011

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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF2

Date

February 28, 2011

Touchdown

1:51 AM CST (07:51 UTC)

Lifted

2:09 AM CST (08:09 UTC)

On the ground

18 minutes

Path length

22.0 miles (35.4 km)

Path width

550 yards (503 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$600,000

Counties

Gibson and Pike counties

Touchdown point

38.340, -87.540

Lift-off point

38.339, -87.134

Record number

1102280151-01

4 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS PAH, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 105 mph.

• A couple barns were partially unroofed in the Somerville Area.
• A house lost about 1/4 of its roof including plywood.
• .Mobile home was shifted off its foundation and a garage was moved about two feet and destroyed. About a half dozen homes sustained mainly shingle damage.

Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.

A surface cyclone accelerated northeast from the southern Plains through central Missouri and the Ohio Valley. An associated warm front lifted northward through the Mid-Mississippi and Lower Ohio Valleys in advance of the surface low. A cold front trailing south from the low surged eastward toward the Lower Mississippi Valley. Lines and clusters of severe storms tracked rapidly eastward, along with a couple of tornadic supercells.

Near Owensville, a mobile home was shifted off its foundation and a garage was moved about two feet and destroyed. About a half-dozen homes sustained mainly shingle damage. Numerous large trees were blown down. Further east along the damage path, a house lost about one-quarter of its roof, including plywood. In the Somerville area, a couple barns were partially unroofed, shingles were off a house and church, and over a dozen trees were snapped or uprooted. Peak winds were estimated near 105 mph. The average path width was 175 yards.

Near the start of the damage path near Princeton, several trees were uprooted and an antenna was blown down by winds near 85 mph. Four miles east of Princeton off Indiana Highway 64, shingles were off two homes and another antenna was down. The tornado reached its peak intensity in Oakland City, where two houses were deemed total losses and several others were heavily damaged. Windows were blown out. A funnel cloud was sighted by a trained spotter. Peak wind was 115 mph. Average path width was 300 yards. The tornado crossed into Pike County just east of Oakland City.

The tornado entered Pike County from Gibson County about 1.5 miles east of Oakland City. Damage was primarily to trees in this rural area. Hundreds of large trees were snapped off or uprooted, and barn roofs were blown off. A garage was demolished near Arthur. The most intense damage occurred two miles east of Arthur, where peak winds were estimated near 115 mph. Average path width was 300 yards.

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

16 minutes of warning. NWS PAH issued a tornado warning for this county at 07:35 UTC, 16 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 08:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 05:46 UTC and running to 09:12 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. The outlook in force was issued at 05:58 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.

Huntingburg (HNB), 35 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Evansville,IN radar (KVWX), 35 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 07:49 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 2011 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.