EF2 tornado, South Washington to Cannelburg, Indiana, March 1, 2017

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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF2

Date

March 1, 2017

Touchdown

5:05 AM EST (10:05 UTC)

Lifted

5:06 AM EST (10:06 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

1.5 miles (2.4 km)

Path width

30 yards (27 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$65,000

County

Daviess County

Touchdown point

38.657, -87.078

Lift-off point

38.652, -87.051

Record number

1703010405-01

9 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS IND, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 125 mph.

• Double Garage Doors Blown in, Exterior walls of Gargage Collasped and blown out.
• Swath of Large trees had trunks snapped at elevated heights. 2 trees uprooted.
• Collasped Metal Power Line tower. Tower was a two-legged base.
• Unattached Garage Lifted off foundation and moved. Garage doors blown in. Garage may not have been bolted to the foundation.

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

A low pressure system brought very warm and unstable air for late February and early March to central Indiana. The result was severe thunderstorms and 7 tornadoes from the 28th of February to March 1st. A surface frontal system interacted with an unstable and high shear environment to produce the severe weather.

The parent storm was moving southeast at 60 mph through southwest Daviess County, with a brief spin-up occurring along the line. This EF-2 tornado, with winds of approximately 113 mph, did damage that included walls blown out of a garage that was attached to a home, along with the destruction of a pole barn.

This EF-2 tornado was on the ground intermittently throughout the 1.52 mile path. The maximum wind associated with this tornado was approximately 125 mph. Early on, a swath of trees were snapped at elevated heights. Later, two very large trees were snapped and a metal power line truss collapsed.

This EF-1 tornado, with winds estimated at 110 mph, produced damage at this location that included moving an unattached, not anchored garage off it's foundation a few feet. Also, a camper was lifted and blown approximately 30 yards, hitting the house and then destroyed.

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 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 05:42 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.

Daviess City (DCY), 8 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Evansville,IN radar (KVWX), 72 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 10:04 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 2017 tornado in IndianaEvery tornado in Indiana since 1950Warnings in force in Indiana nowThe forecast where you are

38 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.