Tornadoes · United States · Indiana · 2012

EF0 tornado, Smyrna, Indiana, January 17, 2012

Name: EF0 tornado, Smyrna, Indiana, January 17, 2012
Start: 2012-01-17T15:40:00.000Z
End: 2012-01-17T15:41:00.000Z
Location: Smyrna, Indiana

This EF0 tornado ran 0.3 miles across Jefferson County on January 17, 2012, touching down at 10:40 AM EST and reaching 60 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $40,000 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 mphthis tornado
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mph
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: EF0
Date: January 17, 2012
Touchdown: 10:40 AM EST (15:40 UTC)
Lifted: 10:41 AM EST (15:41 UTC)
On the ground: 1 minutes
Path length: 0.3 miles (0.5 km)
Path width: 60 yards (55 m)
Deaths: 0
Injuries: 0
Property damage: $40,000
County: Jefferson County
Touchdown point: 38.760, -85.463
Lift-off point: 38.761, -85.457
Record number: 1201170940-01

What the Weather Service recorded

Deep low pressure moved across the southern Great Lakes the morning of January 17. A cold front associated with this storm swept southeast of the Ohio River during the early afternoon hours. Fueled by unseasonably warm and moist air, a squall line developed across southeastern Missouri and southern Illinois during the early morning and moved across all of southern Indiana during the late morning hours. Embedded within this line were several bowing segments and mesovorticies. Scattered wind damage and several brief tornadoes were reported. The nine tornadoes surveyed across both southern Indiana and central Kentucky made this date the most prolific regional January outbreak recorded.

A person witnessed a weak tornado that damaged an airplane and a hanger at the Madison Municipal County Airport. Damage occurred along IMS Lane. A 500 pound dumpster was moved 35 feet. A Beechcraft twin engine plane was rotated 10 degrees, losing its nose gear in the process. The airport operations building had a disabled awning. A portion of a hanger's siding came off with some siding and insulation found in trees. Several trees were toppled. Maximum winds were estimated to be 85 mph.

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

What forecasters said that day

The local office's own words before the tornado touched down, as it sent them, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service text.

NWS Louisville, KY wrote its last area forecast discussion before the tornado touched down at Jan 17, 9:45 AM EST, 55 minutes earlier.

Area forecast discussion, Jan 17, 9:45 AM EST, 55 minutes before

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Hazardous weather outlook, Jan 17, 4:01 AM EST, 6 hours 39 minutes before

HAZARDOUS WEATHER OUTLOOK
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE LOUISVILLE KY
401 AM EST TUE JAN 17 2012

INZ076>079-083-084-089>092-KYZ023>043-045>049-053>057-061>067-
070>078-081-082-180915-
ORANGE IN-WASHINGTON IN-SCOTT IN-JEFFERSON IN-DUBOIS IN-
CRAWFORD IN-PERRY IN-HARRISON IN-FLOYD IN-CLARK IN-HANCOCK KY-
BRECKINRIDGE KY-MEADE KY-OHIO KY-GRAYSON KY-HARDIN KY-BULLITT KY-
JEFFERSON KY-OLDHAM KY-TRIMBLE KY-HENRY KY-SHELBY KY-FRANKLIN KY-
SCOTT KY-HARRISON KY-SPENCER KY-ANDERSON KY-WOODFORD KY-
FAYETTE KY-BOURBON KY-NICHOLAS KY-NELSON KY-WASHINGTON KY-
MERCER KY-JESSAMINE KY-CLARK KY-LARUE KY-MARION KY-BOYLE KY-
GARRARD KY-MADISON KY-BUTLER KY-EDMONSON KY-HART KY-GREEN KY-
TAYLOR KY-CASEY KY-LINCOLN KY-LOGAN KY-WARREN KY-SIMPSON KY-
ALLEN KY-BARREN KY-MONROE KY-METCALFE KY-ADAIR KY-RUSSELL KY-
CUMBERLAND KY-CLINTON KY-
401 AM EST TUE JAN 17 2012 /301 AM CST TUE JAN 17 2012/

THIS HAZARDOUS WEATHER OUTLOOK IS FOR PORTIONS OF SOUTH CENTRAL
INDIANA AND CENTRAL KENTUCKY.

.DAY ONE...TODAY AND TONIGHT.

SHOWERS AND A FEW THUNDERSTORMS MAY PRODUCE GUSTY WINDS IN EXCESS
OF 40 MPH THIS MORNING. THE BEST CHANCE FOR THUNDERSTORMS AND
GUSTY WINDS WILL BE ALONG AND NORTH OF INTERSTATE 64.

AFTER THE PASSAGE OF A COLD FRONT...WIND GUSTS WILL CONTINUE TO
APPROACH 40 MPH THIS AFTERNOON.

.DAYS TWO THROUGH SEVEN...WEDNESDAY THROUGH MONDAY.

NO HAZARDOUS WEATHER IS EXPECTED AT THIS TIME.

.SPOTTER INFORMATION STATEMENT...

SPOTTERS ARE ENCOURAGED TO REPORT RAINFALL AMOUNTS TODAY.

40

In the hours before

Special weather statement, Jan 17, 10:24 AM EST, 16 minutes before

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Local storm report, Jan 17, 10:25 AM EST, 15 minutes before

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Local storm report, Jan 17, 10:26 AM EST, 14 minutes before

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Special weather statement, Jan 17, 10:27 AM EST, 13 minutes before

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Special weather statement, Jan 17, 10:30 AM EST, 10 minutes before

SPECIAL WEATHER STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE LOUISVILLE KY
930 AM CST TUE JAN 17 2012

INZ076>079-092-KYZ031-171600-
CLARK-JEFFERSON-OLDHAM-ORANGE-SCOTT-WASHINGTON-
1030 AM EST TUE JAN 17 2012

...STRONG THUNDERSTORM WITH DANGEROUS LIGHTNING...HEAVY RAIN...HALF
INCH HAIL...AND 50 MPH WINDS...

AT 1025 AM EST...NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER RADAR WAS TRACKING
A STRONG THUNDERSTORM 8 MILES SOUTHWEST OF SALEM...AND MOVING EAST AT
55 MPH.

FREQUENT CLOUD TO GROUND LIGHTNING...HEAVY RAIN WITH RAINFALL RATES
OF AROUND ONE INCH PER HOUR REDUCING VISIBILITIES TO LESS THAN ONE
MILE...HALF INCH HAIL...AND STRONG GUSTY WINDS OF AROUND 45 TO 50
MPH...ARE EXPECTED WITH THIS STORM.

* THIS STORM WILL ALSO IMPACT...
  SCOTTSBURG...
  SALEM...
  NEW PEKIN AND FARABEE...
  DAISY HILL AND BLUE RIVER...
  NEW LIBERTY AND BUNKER HILL...
  BLUE LICK AND HENRYVILLE...

THIS STORM WILL AFFECT INTERSTATE 65 IN INDIANA BETWEEN MILE MARKERS
16 AND 29.

PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...

IF YOU ARE IN THE PATH OF THIS STORM...SEEK SHELTER INDOORS AND STAY
AWAY FROM WINDOWS. STAY TUNED TO NOAA ALL HAZARDS RADIO...
WEATHER.GOV/LOUISVILLE ON THE INTERNET...OR LOCAL MEDIA FOR LATER
UPDATES AND POSSIBLE WARNINGS.

&&

LAT...LON 3870 8545 3841 8546 3840 8597 3842 8600
      3842 8631 3840 8631 3840 8643 3861 8621
      3872 8583
TIME...MOT...LOC 1530Z 267DEG 47KT 3851 8610

AMS

Local storm report, Jan 17, 10:33 AM EST, 7 minutes before

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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

3.7 hours before the tornado, 161 km from the path. January 17, 2012.

Skew-T log-p

Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.

Hodograph

The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.

Mixed-layer CAPE: 0 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN: -76701 J/kg
Surface CAPE: 0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL: 602 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear: 59 kt
0-1 km bulk shear: 67 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity: 818 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity: 844 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter: 0.0
Supercell composite: 0.0
0-3 km lapse rate: 4.2 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Louisville/Bowman (LOU), 62 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)	Temp (°F)	Dew point (°F)	Wind	Gust (kt)	Pressure (mb)	Weather
00:00 UTC

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

The radar

The Louisville radar (KLVX), 97 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 15:39 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.

This ground now

The live radar over the track Every 2012 tornado in Indiana Every tornado in Indiana since 1950 Warnings in force in Indiana now The forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of January 17, 2012

11 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

Date	Time	Rating	Where	Path (mi)	Width (yd)	Injuries	Damage
January 17	9:44 AM EST	EF0	Dubois, IN	0.1	25		$4,000
January 17	9:54 AM EST	EF1	Dubois, IN	8.8	100		$20,000
January 17	11:00 AM EST	EF1	Floyd, IN	2.1	50		$10,000
January 17	11:06 AM EST	EF0	Clark, IN	1.9	30		$20,000
January 17	11:12 AM EST	EF1	Jefferson, KY	7.9	250	1	$300,000
January 17	11:20 AM EST	EF1	Jefferson, KY	0.5	90		$50,000
January 17	12:12 PM EST	EF1	Scott, KY	0.5	75		$30,000
January 17	12:20 PM CST	EF0	Simpson, KY	3.0	150		$75,000
January 17	12:20 PM CST	EF2	Allen, KY	5.3	150		$10,000
January 17	1:27 PM CST	EF0	Rutherford, TN	1.7	125		$250,000
January 17	4:02 PM CST	EF2	Marion, MS	2.8	440	2	$250,000

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.