EF2 tornado, Pendleton to Anderson Ace Arpt, Indiana, May 27, 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

May 27, 2019

Touchdown

8:05 PM EDT (00:05 UTC)

Lifted

8:18 PM EDT (00:18 UTC)

On the ground

13 minutes

Path length

5.9 miles (9.5 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

1

Property damage

$150,000

County

Madison County

Touchdown point

39.998, -85.755

Lift-off point

40.057, -85.674

Record number

1905271805-01

59 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 132 mph.

• A portion of the roof on the northwest side of a barn had been blown off.
• West-facing barn door buckled.
• Multiple hardwood trees and large branches were snapped, uprooted, and downed west of the intersection of CR 700N and Raider Rd.
• Large tree branch snapped and large tree uprooted.

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

Thunderstorms developed near a warm front in an unstable environment, with plenty of low level shear/helicity, during the evening of Memorial Day, May 27th. This allowed the storms to rotate and rapidly became severe, producing tornadoes, large hail, and damaging winds. The storms and tornadoes damaged homes, brought down many trees and power lines, and produced heavy rain as well.

NWS Indianapolis found tornado damage started west of Pendleton. The tornado moved through the north side of Pendleton toward Huntsville. In this area, mainly EF-1 damage was found, consisting of many trees blown down and minor roof damage.||Damage to structures in this part of the tornado path was caused primarily from trees falling onto homes and buildings. Saturated ground due to recent rains contributed to the numerous trees blown down.||The EF-2 tornado damage was found northeast of Huntsville. Three homes here suffered EF-2 damage which included roofs blown off two homes. A third home suffered damage when a part of an exterior brick wall collapsed inward to the home. The max wind speed was estimated at 130 mph. ||Thereafter, the tornado continued northeast, crossing Interstate 69 before lifting near 57th street and Main Street in Anderson.

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 00:04 UTC, 1 minute before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 18:25 UTC and running to 02:01 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 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:58 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.

Anderson Municip (AID), 12 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The Indianapolis radar (KIND), 60 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:06 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

62 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 63 of them

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.