EF0 tornado, Ade, Indiana, August 10, 2020

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

August 10, 2020

Touchdown

4:15 PM CDT (21:15 UTC)

Lifted

4:16 PM CDT (21:16 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.9 miles (1.4 km)

Path width

40 yards (37 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Newton County

Touchdown point

40.851, -87.442

Lift-off point

40.850, -87.426

Record number

2008101515-01

6 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS LOT, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 70 mph.

• From Ray Chambers Newton County EMA survey.
• Metal farm building had portion of roof peeled off. From Ray Chambers Newton County EMA survey.
• Large TV antenna knocked down. From Ray Chambers Newton County EMA survey.
• Convergent rotation pattern in corn from drone picture. From Ray Chambers Newton County EMA survey.

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

During the late morning through the afternoon of Monday August 10th, a line of intense thunderstorms known as a derecho brought widespread severe wind damage across Iowa, northern Illinois and northern Indiana.||In northwest Indiana alone, the winds downed hundreds of trees, as well as caused damage to homes, businesses and infrastructure. There were two injuries reported in northwest Indiana within the NWS Chicago/Romeoville County Warning Area (CWA) due to falling trees. It was estimated that over 200,000 customers lost power at the height of the derecho across all of northern Indiana. While much of the damage was due to straight line winds, there was also one tornado documented in northwest Indiana.||The combination of high moisture, explosive instability and very strong atmospheric wind flow for mid-summer had developed quickly over the Corn Belt region on the morning of August 10th. This resulted in a progressive, well-organized complex of storms for hundreds of miles and at times traveling nearly 70 mph. After bringing extensive damage from extreme wind speeds in Iowa that morning, the damage transitioned across northern Illinois from widespread wind damage to narrow, brief and intense swaths associated with compact circulations within the thunderstorm line, some of which were associated with tornadoes.

A brief tornado with peak winds of 70 mph touched down southwest of Brook. The tornado made a path through corn fields, indicating a convergent pattern. The only damage was to metal farm buildings west of Route 41 and south of W 1000 S Road. One had a portion of its metal roof peeled off and doors were blown out of another. The path of this tornado was determined, in part, using high resolution satellite imagery.

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 severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 16:28 UTC and running to 22:23 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 Enhanced Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:38 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 Chicago radar (KLOT), 100 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:16 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 2020 tornado in IndianaEvery tornado in Indiana since 1950Warnings in force in Indiana nowThe forecast where you are

26 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.