EF0 tornado, Greenhill, Indiana, July 13, 2015

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

   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 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

EF0

Date

July 13, 2015

Touchdown

9:15 PM EDT (01:15 UTC)

Path length

0.0 miles (0.0 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Crop damage

$750

County

Warren County

Touchdown point

40.434, -87.212

Lift-off point

40.434, -87.212

Record number

1507131915-01

2 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS IND and NWS LOT, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 70 mph.

• Spotters report a brief tornado touchdown with no damage. Confirmed via photo.

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

Waves of showers and thunderstorms moved across central Indiana on July 13 and into the early morning of July 14. Upper level features interacted with a surface front and plenty of moisture and instability to generate severe weather and heavy rains/flooding. Three tornadoes occurred during the evening of the 13th. One tornado was in Warren County, and the other two were in Putnam County. Widespread tree and power line damage occurred across central Indiana, and some locations received over 4 inches of rain. A few locations had hail as well. The heavy rain led to flooding in many areas.

A supercell thunderstorm produced a brief EF0 tornado about 18 miles west of Lafayette or about 2.5 miles southeast of Pine Village in Northern Warren County. The tornado was observed by a trained spotter briefly touching down in a corn field, producing no damage other than to the crops at the touchdown point.

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

21 minutes of warning. NWS IND issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:54 UTC, 21 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 21:03 UTC and running to 04:00 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 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 01:10 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 Indianapolis radar (KIND), 113 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:12 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 2015 tornado in IndianaEvery tornado in Indiana since 1950Warnings in force in Indiana nowThe forecast where you are

10 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.