EF1 tornado, Paoli, Indiana, November 14, 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 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

November 14, 2011

Touchdown

7:32 PM EST (00:32 UTC)

Lifted

7:35 PM EST (00:35 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

2.0 miles (3.2 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$100,000

County

Orange County

Touchdown point

38.554, -86.480

Lift-off point

38.563, -86.446

Record number

1111141832-01

10 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS LMK, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 103 mph.

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

A squall line developed ahead of a cold front across central and western Indiana. By evening, this line moved southeast into southern Indiana and north central Kentucky. Despite limited instability, surface based convection mixed down very strong winds aloft. Several brief bowing segments developed along this line and brought scattered wind damage and one tornado that moved through Paoli, Indiana.

A tornado first touched down on the north side of the Paoli school complex three quarters of a mile west of the downtown square. It destroyed a 100 year old barn and heavily damaged the roofs of two other outbuildings. It then removed a large section of roofing from the Paoli police department on West Main Street before snapping several trees along Lick Creek. Based on a damage survey, this tornado was classified as an EF-1 with peak winds from 95 to 100 mph between its initial touchdown and the Paoli town square. While moving across the town square, this tornado ripped the metal roofs off of two businesses. Three chimneys on the Orange County Courthouse collapsed. Moving east of the town square, the tornado traveled another mile and a quarter, weakening to EF-0 status while uprooting many trees and damaging the roofs of several homes. Before lifting next to North Marshall Road, the tornado damaged a metal outbuilding.

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.

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 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 19:45 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.

The Louisville radar (KLVX), 79 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:32 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

2 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.