EF2 tornado, Ridgeport to Cincinnati, Indiana, June 15, 2019

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 mph

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. EF2111 to 135 mphthis tornado

   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

EF2

Date

June 15, 2019

Touchdown

6:56 PM EDT (22:56 UTC)

Lifted

7:00 PM EDT (23:00 UTC)

On the ground

4 minutes

Path length

3.5 miles (5.7 km)

Path width

400 yards (366 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$250,000

County

Greene County

Touchdown point

39.046, -86.796

Lift-off point

39.050, -86.731

Record number

1906151656-01

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

• Significant tree damage was noted at this point and around Monroe Lake

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

A warm front brought severe storms, tornadoes, and heavy rain on June 15th. A significant tornado outbreak that was the largest since November 17, 2013 occurred during the evening of Saturday, June 15th. Seven tornadoes occurred in central Indiana with 3 additional tornadoes across portions of eastern Indiana.||This is what the environment showed. A weak shortwave trough was moving through central Indiana during the time of the severe weather. This was a high shear, low CAPE environment initially which kept convection to a minimum until around 5 PM when just enough CAPE was there to rapidly increase storm coverage and severity. LCL heights were around 750m at the time. The shear profile was ideal for creating numerous rotating thunderstorms. With 0-1km Shear over 30 knots and Storm Relative Helicity in excess of 300 m^2/s^2, the low level environment was primed for tornadoes. The 0-6km shear of 40-50 knots was sufficient for rotating supercells. The significant tornado parameter was not quite as impressive and was kept fairly low due to the low CAPE environment. Had CAPE values been closer to 2000-3000 J/kg, a much more intense outbreak would have occurred. In addition to the tornado threat, Precipitable Water values were in excess of 1.5 inches which also lead to significant flash flooding as the evening progressed.

The EF-2 rated tornado, with max wind speeds of 130 mph, started west of North Crowe Road causing significant damage to a newly built building on Crowe Road. The owner verified it was well built and in very good shape. The track continued across State Road 54 and left a wide swath of tree damage with a resident stating over 100 acres of trees were snapped. The storm crossed State Road 43 and dissipated in a field to the east.

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

1 minute of warning. NWS IND issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:55 UTC, 1 minute before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 18:51 UTC and running to 02:00 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 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 20:00 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), 84 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:52 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 2019 tornado in IndianaEvery tornado in Indiana since 1950Warnings in force in Indiana nowThe forecast where you are

28 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.