EF2 tornado, Bluff Creek to New Whiteland, Indiana, June 25, 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 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 25, 2023

Touchdown

4:12 PM EDT (20:12 UTC)

Lifted

4:23 PM EDT (20:23 UTC)

On the ground

11 minutes

Path length

5.4 miles (8.7 km)

Path width

400 yards (366 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$1.2 million

County

Johnson County

Touchdown point

39.569, -86.221

Lift-off point

39.562, -86.124

Record number

2306251412-01

24 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 115 mph.

• Trailer picked up and thrown northward about 100 ft. Just passed that, neighbors pool shed completely collapsed. Tree damage on lots with tree damage facing more eastward. This is near the starting point of the tornado so far.
• Starting point of tornado is just south of where I was standing here.
• Power poles also snapped and laying northward. Calling this a high end ef1 for now because the damage is spotty. Some houses with litlle damage next to ones with a lot. Could be a low end ef2 but not confident yet.
• Loss of roof on western side of house. Lots of brick thrown in yard. This is the same house with the pool shed collapsed.

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

An afternoon severe weather outbreak was organized by an approaching cold front and fueled by 2000-3000 J/kg of CAPE courtesy of high lapse rates aloft, surface dewpoints in the low to mid-70s, and cooresponding temperatures as high as the mid to upper 90s over western central Indiana. Numerous rotating supercell thunderstorms developed over western central Indiana in the early to mid-afternoon and proceeded to the east-southeast through central and southern Indiana. These cells produced penny or larger hail over 16 of the region's 39 counties, more isolated straight line wind damage to trees, barns and roofs, and four EF1/EF2 tornadoes within a 33-minute period along the I-69 corridor south of Indianapolis. Each tornado was spawned from a separate supercell: an EF2 that impacted residential communities in northwestern Johnson County, a pair of EF1s that tracked across rather rural portions of northern Daviess/Martin Counties and southwestern Monroe County, and finally a longer-track EF2 that crossed far southern Martin County, killing 1 person and injuring another when destroying a rural residence, before ending its track in extreme northeastern Dubois County. The end of the event saw, amid the weakening cluster of supercells, three cells produce isolated large hail over eastern central Indiana, with also wind damage to two barns in the Seymour area.

A rotating supercell thunderstorm spawned the tornado just west of the intersection of Travis and Mullinix Roads. Moving east, it intensified quickly while producing mainly high-end EF1 damage (winds up to 110 mph) near and around this intersection, with bricks blown off of a large house, roof damage, a trailer moved into an adjacent yard, trees snapped, and a few snapped power poles. Spotty low-end EF-2 (up to 115 mph) damage was also probable here.||The tornado continued east and went through parts of the Kensington Grove subdivision causing substantial roof damage to some homes while several trees were downed and snapped, indicative of EF1 intensity (95-110 mph). The tornado continued east through the Waters Edge neighborhood and over the area's pond while maintaining EF1 strength (90-100 mph). The tornado continued past the Old Marsh by Indiana Route 135, just before impacting portions of an apartment complex under construction. Here the roof was torn off the length of one of the apartment buildings while many windows were broken and even a few pieces of debris were impaled into the ground, indicative of low-end EF2 winds (115 mph).||The tornado then started to turn southeast and pass over an open field where a narrow debris swath was deposited. In this area the tornado may have skipped off the surface a bit. The tornado then came down and snapped and uprooted numerous trees along West County Road 600 North just south of the Restoration Church. More high-end EF1 damage was evident here (100-110 mph). The tornado lifted about 1500 feet southeast of the church.

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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 17:34 UTC and running to 22:43 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 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. 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), 18 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:12 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

7 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.