EF1 tornado, Stanford to Kirksville, 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 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 25, 2023

Touchdown

4:30 PM EDT (20:30 UTC)

Lifted

4:37 PM EDT (20:37 UTC)

On the ground

7 minutes

Path length

4.5 miles (7.2 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$450,000

County

Monroe County

Touchdown point

39.029, -86.674

Lift-off point

39.021, -86.594

Record number

2306251430-01

35 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS IND, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 100 mph.

• Fences blown in multiple direction. Converging pattern of wood. Pool structure barely touched.
• Garage door partially collapsed inward. Porch columns blown outward.
• Splatter on east side of house. Roofing material blown to the NW.
• Shed with wood anchoring destroyed, with walls and pieces of siding scattered around the yard in different places.

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 supercell thunderstorm spawned this third tornado of the day, which would track across far southwestern Monroe County, for its first 3 miles in a mainly easterly direction, before turning more east-southeasterly along the track's final 1.5 miles. The tornado inflicted a combination of EF0 and EF1 intensity damage. Strongest winds were estimated at 100 mph over latter portions of the track, both where the tornado turned right and again when impacting a home shortly after crossing South Rockport Road.||The tornado began as an EF0 on the south side of West Carmichael Road, about 1500 feet west-northwest of the intersection of West Carmichael Road and West Rock East Road; here it damaged multiple outbuildings and a barn. About a half mile of EF1 intensity damage then occurred along West Rock East Road including multiple trees snapped at the trunk. Near the midpoint of the track upon crossing South Lee Phillips Road, the tornado caused isolated tree and home damage including uprooted a hardwood tree and blowing out a window. 0.9 miles later the tornado reached peak intensity over a slight rise of ground, with winds snapping trees, destroying a wood-anchored shed, and bending an anchored steel plate. The tornado then turned to the east-southeast, and again exhibited peak intensity upon crossing South Rockport Road where a well-built barn was partially destroyed and a 2-story home sustained extensive roof damage. For the final 0.8 miles of its track, the tornado roughly paralleled South Rockport Road while occasionally snapping pine trees, before ending about 4 miles west of the western end of Monroe Lake.

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

20 minutes of warning. NWS IND issued a tornado warning for this county at 20:10 UTC, 20 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 21:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 17:34 UTC and running to 21:58 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 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. 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), 82 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:33 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.