EF1 tornado, Blue Lick to Henryville, Indiana, March 2, 2012

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

March 2, 2012

Touchdown

3:30 PM EST (20:30 UTC)

Lifted

3:36 PM EST (20:36 UTC)

On the ground

6 minutes

Path length

6.6 miles (10.6 km)

Path width

60 yards (55 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$300,000

County

Clark County

Touchdown point

38.515, -85.876

Lift-off point

38.541, -85.759

Record number

1203021430-01

A surface Low over Missouri early in the afternoon of March 2nd strengthened to below 990mb as it moved north into Michigan by the evening hours. Around dawn, a warm front moved north of the Ohio River, accompanied by scattered elevated thunderstorms that produced small hail. During the early afternoon, temperatures rose into the lower 70s across southern Indiana. the combination of extreme wind shear and CAPE near 2000 Joules/kg brought several long lived supercells to the state near the Ohio River. These storms produced baseball-sized hail and several tornadoes, including a violent long-tracker, to southern Indiana. The tornadoes across the area were a part of a well forecast regional outbreak that affected the entire Lower Ohio and Tennessee Valleys. Overall, more than 80 tornadoes caused millions of dollars of damage and took several dozen lives. ||For southern Indiana, March 2nd became the worst tornado outbreak since June 2nd, 1990.

Interviews with witnesses helped the NWS damage survey team determine that a second tornado developed to the west southwest of Henryville and moved along a 6 mile track that almost perfectly covered a portion of the track of a previous violent tornado around 15 minutes earlier. The second tornado was associated with a large supercell that brought softball sized hail just to the north of its tornado track. This tornado had intermittent contact with the ground, first touching down and causing tree damage to Round Knob in the Clark State Forest. Damage was then observed along and west of Speith Road, located just southwest of Henryville. Finally the tornado lifted after doing damage along the south side of Henryville from Robyn Avenue to near the intersection of Highway 60 and Haddox Road.

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

50 minutes of warning. NWS LMK issued a tornado warning for this county at 19:40 UTC, 50 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 20:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 18:05 UTC and running to 22:51 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 High Risk, with a 0.30 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 19:56 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.

Louisville/Bowman (LOU), 36 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Louisville radar (KLVX), 62 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:28 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 2012 tornado in IndianaEvery tornado in Indiana since 1950Warnings in force in Indiana nowThe forecast where you are

69 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 70 of them

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.