EF1 tornado, Clifton to Witts Station, 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 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

June 15, 2019

Touchdown

9:42 PM EDT (01:42 UTC)

Lifted

9:44 PM EDT (01:44 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

2.1 miles (3.4 km)

Path width

35 yards (32 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$35,000

County

Union County

Touchdown point

39.700, -84.924

Lift-off point

39.717, -84.891

Record number

1906151942-01

Severe thunderstorms developed on a stalled frontal boundary draped across the region.

The tornado first touched down on the 1700 block of North U.S. Route 27, where a swirl was observed in a field just to the southwest of a well-constructed, 110 ft by 105 ft metal farm storage building. Several 4 X 4`s were snapped and the building was completely destroyed. Metal debris from this building was identified over 2 miles to the northeast. Wood debris from the barn was located from south to north in a semicircle approximately two hundred yards wide. In addition, there was a convergent path of wood and metal debris off to the northeast. Along this convergent path, a significant amount of debris was deposited in a tree line approximately a half mile to the northeast.||Additional damage was observed along the 1700 block of East Mitchell Road. An eyewitness saw the tornado a half mile to the southwest, and estimated the width as around 100 feet. He also observed large pieces of metal rotating in the tornado. At his property, an ornamental iron fence was bent down at a 45 degree angle due to a combination of winds associated with the tornado and debris from the location on North U.S. Route 27. The home also suffered some damage, including glass from a storm door blown in and broken glass from four windows. A circular item around three|feet in diameter and weighing two hundred pounds was lifted up, hit the house and then deposited about a couple hundred feet in a ditch behind the house. Numerous trees and large limbs across the property were also knocked down. A few of the trees reached diameters up to two feet.||Debris was evident in the field northeast of the East Mitchell Road residence. This debris was associated with the large metal building at the first location.||Additional damage was found further northeast at a residence on County Road 200 East. Several trees were downed, with one falling on the roof of a house and causing damage. This is the last known damage that occurred from this 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.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 00:40 UTC and running to 03:08 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 01:46 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 Cincinnati radar (KILN), 98 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:42 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.