EF1 tornado, Pleasant Pt, Indiana, May 20, 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 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

May 20, 2017

Touchdown

7:10 PM EDT (23:10 UTC)

Lifted

7:11 PM EDT (23:11 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.2 miles (0.3 km)

Path width

30 yards (27 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$75,000

County

Jefferson County

Touchdown point

38.789, -85.426

Lift-off point

38.789, -85.423

Record number

1705201710-01

6 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS LMK, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The highest wind the damage implies is 98 mph.

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

An extremely warm, moist, and unstable air mass resided over the lower Ohio Valley during the middle of May. As a series of strong weather systems passed through the region, rounds of strong to severe thunderstorms developed and tracked across southern Indiana. Several inches of rain fell in a very short time resulting in a significant flash flood event for Washington County, Indiana. There were 2 confirmed tornadoes, one in Crawford County and another in Jefferson County, Indiana.

A small tornado touched down just north of West Galway Trail N in a tree line behind some houses. The tornado uprooted and snapped trees as it moved east. An eyewitness reported seeing a black mass with debris moving horizontally. The tornado covered his house in fallen trees. As it crossed Paper Mill Road, the inflow winds into the tornado pulled off siding from nearby houses and moved light objects several hundred feet. A camper parked on the southern edge of the path rolled three times toward the center of circulation and was destroyed. After crossing the road it struck an abandoned farm house and did more tree damage. There was no more evidence of damage after the tornado passed east of the farmhouse.

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

1 minute of warning. NWS LMK issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:09 UTC, 1 minute before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:30 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 20:24 UTC and running to 00:33 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 20:01 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 Louisville radar (KLVX), 101 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:07 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

3 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.