Tornadoes · United States · Indiana · 2019
EF1 tornado, Graysville, Indiana, August 12, 2019
This EF1 tornado ran 1.7 miles across Sullivan County on August 12, 2019, touching down at 12:44 PM EDT and reaching 100 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $5,000 of property damage.
The rating scale
Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Enhanced Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.
EF065 to 85 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
EF4166 to 200 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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.
The record
- Rating
- EF1
- Date
- August 12, 2019
- Touchdown
- 12:44 PM EDT (16:44 UTC)
- Lifted
- 12:47 PM EDT (16:47 UTC)
- On the ground
- 3 minutes
- Path length
- 1.7 miles (2.8 km)
- Path width
- 100 yards (91 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $5,000
- Crop damage
- $10,000
- County
- Sullivan County
- Touchdown point
- 39.135, -87.616
- Lift-off point
- 39.139, -87.585
- Record number
- 1908121044-01
What the Weather Service recorded
A line of thunderstorms moved across parts of central Indiana late in the evening on August 12th and continued into the early hours of August 13th. One of the thunderstorms produced a brief tornado in Sullivan County.
The tornado began near the intersection of County Road 350 North and 1125 West and tracked northeast. There was damage to multiple corn fields as well as multiple areas of tree damage along the path. A swirling pattern was noted in the sheared and downed corn stalks on County Road 1050 West, north of County Road 350 North. The tornado damage came to an end a half a mile northeast of where County Road 350 North turns north and becomes County Road 1000 West.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01:25 UTC | 06:44 UTC | Tornado Watch | IND |
| 04:19 UTC | 05:15 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | IND |
| 04:56 UTC | 05:45 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | IND |
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 forecast that day
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 16:30 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 air that afternoon
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.
Lincoln, IL (KILX), 12:00Z
4.7 hours before the tornado, 141 km from the path. August 12, 2019.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 440 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -64 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 165 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 873 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 25 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 1 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 3 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 70 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.1
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.5 K/km
Lincoln, IL (KILX), 00:00Z
7.3 hours after it, 141 km from the path. August 13, 2019.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 2221 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -12 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 3442 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 827 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 35 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 19 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 134 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 293 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 3.3
- Supercell composite
- 19.6
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 6.4 K/km
The radar
The Evansville,IN radar (KVWX), 98 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 16:41 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.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2019 tornado in IndianaEvery tornado in Indiana since 1950Warnings in force in Indiana nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of August 12, 2019
4 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
What this means
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.
Sources
NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.