EF1 tornado, Muncie to Mayfield, Indiana, November 5, 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

November 5, 2017

Touchdown

3:09 PM EST (20:09 UTC)

Lifted

3:10 PM EST (20:10 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.1 miles (0.1 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$20,000

County

Delaware County

Touchdown point

40.199, -85.386

Lift-off point

40.199, -85.384

Record number

1711051409-01

42 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS IND and NWS IWX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 130 mph.

• 4 pines snapped here, weak ground circulation evident
• several pine trees snapped at this residence. Additional hardwood trees snapped and uprooted noted across CR 1100 N.
• part of roof in field to the east
• several sections of fence lost along with damaged pine trees. Shingles torn from homes. evidence of ground circulation here and in bean field to the north of 1200N.

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

Waves of low pressure moved along a strong cold front on November 5th, generating strong to severe thunderstorms during the afternoon and evening hours. Strong 850mb winds brought up plenty of moisture for the storms to work with and the storms produced some tornadoes, damaging winds, large hail, and flooding.

Brief EF1 tornado within the heart of Muncie, with winds estimated at 95 mph, destroyed a garage, removed roof panels from a couple houses, snapped numerous trees, and uprooted a large tree then deposited it north of another large tree that was north of it.||A large bow echo on radar producing widespread straight line wind damage spun up this small, brief EF1 tornado.

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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 17:10 UTC and running to 23:38 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 Enhanced Risk, with a 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:59 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), 94 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:08 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

23 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.