EF3 tornado, Kokomo Ruzicka Arpt to Vermont, Indiana, August 24, 2016

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 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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF3

Date

August 24, 2016

Touchdown

3:20 PM EDT (19:20 UTC)

Lifted

3:34 PM EDT (19:34 UTC)

On the ground

14 minutes

Path length

8.6 miles (13.9 km)

Path width

300 yards (274 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

20

Property damage

$10 million

County

Howard County

Touchdown point

40.461, -86.188

Lift-off point

40.499, -86.032

Record number

1608241320-01

53 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS IND, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF3. The highest wind the damage implies is 152 mph.

• located on north side of tornado. looks like wind circulation went in directly from the front, peeling the ceiling back, allowing walls to collapse inward.
• approx 10 homes destroyed.
• truck originated in driveway moved about 10 ft.
• tops of trees sheared next to damaged home. to the east, flattened corn pointing northward and northeast indicating tornado continued northeast.

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

Multiple supercell thunderstorms produced a total of 7 tornadoes across central Indiana on August 24th. Significant damage occurred in Kokomo, where 20 people suffered injuries. There were no fatalities from this event. The 7 tornadoes ratings were: 1 EF-3, 1 EF-2, 2 EF-1s and 3 EF-0s.||Four additional tornadoes were reported in northern Indiana.

This EF-3 tornado, with maximum wind speeds of 152 mph, caused significant structural damage to homes and businesses across the south side of Kokomo. A Starbucks building was destroyed near Markland Mall. According to WTHR13, at least 80 homes were destroyed. Out of the 1,000 total homes damaged, about 170 of them sustained major damage. Much of the Park Place Apartments were damaged or destroyed. Numerous trees were downed as well.

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

30 minutes of warning. NWS IND issued a tornado warning for this county at 18:50 UTC, 30 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 19:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 19:10 UTC and running to 00:54 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 Marginal Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 16:20 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), 87 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 19:19 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 2016 tornado in IndianaEvery tornado in Indiana since 1950Warnings in force in Indiana nowThe forecast where you are

21 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.