EF1 tornado, Salem Muni Arpt, Indiana, August 6, 2023

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

August 6, 2023

Touchdown

1:13 AM EDT (05:13 UTC)

Lifted

1:15 AM EDT (05:15 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

1.8 miles (2.9 km)

Path width

60 yards (55 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Washington County

Touchdown point

38.596, -86.141

Lift-off point

38.612, -86.116

Record number

2308062313-01

37 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS LMK, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 95 mph.

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

Several individual storms moved across Missouri and Illinois before combining into a line of convection as it moved across southern Indiana. The line interacted with the low level jet to produce 6 tornadoes across 4 Indiana counties, including a long track tornado that traveled 25.89 miles through Dubois and Orange Counties. This set the record for the longest known tornado track for the month of August within the NWS Louisville County Warning Area. Other parts of the line surged and caused tree and power line damage along and north of Interstate 64 across southern Indiana and into the greater Louisville, Kentucky area. Additional wind and hail reports were received from the Bluegrass region of Kentucky.

The first tornadic damage was a few trees down off Country Club Road going into the Western Hills Golf Course. There was damage to the garage roofing structure at the Salem Speedway. The tornado was intermittent as it straddled Indiana Hwy 56 in the west side of Salem.||The most significant amount of damage from the tornado was between Hwy 56 and Old State Route 60. There was plenty of damage to the siding, gutters, and to several businesses roofing structures. Debris from the buildings was thrown in a northerly to easterly direction about 150 yards. Winds were 90 mph with a width of 60 yards. There were several snapped and topped power poles and lines as well.||The tornado snapped and uprooted a few trees between old State Route 60 and North Cox Ferry Road. Winds in this area were 80 mph.||Drone photography showed that the damage stopped before it hit Cauble Street.||There was extensive straight-line wind damage throughout Salem of between 60 and 70 mph. One area off Drive-In Theater Rd had 80 mph straight-line winds with many hardwood trees uprooted.

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

21 minutes of warning. NWS LMK issued a tornado warning for this county at 04:52 UTC, 21 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 05:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 01:37 UTC and running to 08:48 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. The outlook in force was issued at 01:10 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 Louisville radar (KLVX), 72 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 05:13 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 2023 tornado in IndianaEvery tornado in Indiana since 1950Warnings in force in Indiana nowThe forecast where you are

9 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.