EF0 tornado, Salem, Indiana, July 20, 2018

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

   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 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

EF0

Date

July 20, 2018

Touchdown

2:03 PM EDT (18:03 UTC)

Lifted

2:05 PM EDT (18:05 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

1.1 miles (1.8 km)

Path width

75 yards (69 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$50,000

County

Washington County

Touchdown point

38.634, -86.109

Lift-off point

38.646, -86.097

Record number

1807201203-01

12 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS LMK, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 79 mph.

• Corn flattened in cyclonic pattern
• A few trees down in tree line across the road, topped tree in distance.
• Overhead garage doors blown in - one completely. entry door on west side of garage blown out, and debris not found.
• Siding and roofing removed on home and attached garage - blown up to 1/3 mile northeast

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

Rounds of severe storms hammered southern Indiana and central Kentucky on Friday, July 20, 2018, bringing very large hail, wind damage, heavy rain, and 2 confirmed tornadoes in Indiana. ||The largest hail report the national weather service received was 4 inches in diameter (softball size) in Tompkinsville! The strongest measured wind gust was 70 mph at the Lexington Bluegrass Airport.

This very small, skipping tornado did its damage primarily on hilltops between Sparks Ferry Road and the intersection of State Road 135 and Lewellen Road. A few tree limbs and a small fence were downed near Sparks Ferry Road before it moved northeast over a large wooded area and open farmland. The next damage was concentrated about a quarter mile south of Water Tower Road, just west of Highway 135. Here the tornado tore multiple metal roof panels off a barn, blew the southward-facing overhead doors of a garage in, and tore the entrance door off the garage on the west side. The attached home sustained considerable siding and roof damage. A small play structure on the west side of the home was destroyed, with the debris blown to the west-northwest. Debris from the barn and home were scattered in a narrow path through row crops up to a third of a mile to the northeast, where a resident witnessed large sheets of roofing and siding fall into a hay field on the north side of Lewellen Road. A corn field on the south side of Lewellen Road showed cyclonic rotation in a narrow path of flattened corn. The maximum wind speeds with this tornado were estimated at 80 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.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 17:38 UTC and running to 23:26 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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 16:28 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), 75 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 18:05 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

9 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.