EF1 tornado, Warsaw to Pierceton, Indiana, August 6, 2018

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

August 6, 2018

Touchdown

8:27 PM EDT (00:27 UTC)

Lifted

8:34 PM EDT (00:34 UTC)

On the ground

7 minutes

Path length

4.0 miles (6.5 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Kosciusko County

Touchdown point

41.245, -85.829

Lift-off point

41.240, -85.751

Record number

1808061827-01

6 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS IWX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 93 mph.

• several oak trees on this property snapped. Limited rot.
• Good dozen large white pine trees sheared/topped here. Power pole snapped/road blocked from tree debris.
• numerous large limbs and whole trees snapped here, mostly oaks. small outbuilding sustained minor loss of metal roofing. Wind speed likely closer to 85 to 90 given not all trees were snapped in the area.
• numerous trees snapped here. detached garage sustained minor damage from fallen limbs. adjacient apple orchard was heavily damaged.

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

A MCV from overnight convection in Michigan as well as a upper level wave all caused favorable conditions for thunderstorms to develop. MLCAPE of 2000 to 3000 J/KG was observed with a 40 knot speed max passing through all resulting in pockets of damaging winds. A tornado was confirmed in the Warsaw Indiana area within a larger swath of more sporadic wind damage.

An NWS survey of damage confirmed a low end EF-1 tornado touched down in Warsaw |just southeast of Pike lake and moved through a subdivision causing mainly tree damage. The tornado crossed US-30 and paralleled County Road 75 N, continuing to uprooted trees, snapping tree trunks and topping trees. Several homes and cars were impacted by tree debris. In addition several power poles were snapped. Minor |roofing and siding damage occurred to some homes as well. The tornado curved to the south slightly, eventually lifting east of North County Road 450 East. Wind speeds were estimated at around 90 mph. ||The tornado occurred along the northern edge of a broader wind damage|swath of up to 250 yards. Damage here was much more sporadic with|estimated winds of 60-65 mph.

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 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:52 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 Northern Indiana radar (KIWX), 15 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:24 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 2018 tornado in IndianaEvery tornado in Indiana since 1950Warnings in force in Indiana nowThe forecast where you are

2 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.