EF1 tornado, Dale to Huntingburg Arpt, Indiana, March 3, 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

March 3, 2023

Touchdown

1:07 PM CST (19:07 UTC)

Lifted

1:15 PM CST (19:15 UTC)

On the ground

8 minutes

Path length

5.3 miles (8.4 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$50,000

Counties

Spencer and Dubois counties

Touchdown point

38.170, -86.970

Lift-off point

38.241, -86.930

Record number

2303031307-01

21 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS LMK and NWS PAH, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 105 mph.

• About 100 yards west of the road

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

A strong storm system led to significant impacts. Heavy rainfall amounts of 3 to 4.5 inches produced isolated flash flooding of roads. Very strong wind gusts occurred, ranging between 50 and 70 mph. These were associated with both thunderstorms and gradient winds afterwards. The line of storms moved through during the early afternoon, and then very strong gradient winds continued for hours afterwards through the afternoon. The magnitude and duration of this wind produced significant damage to trees, power lines, and outbuildings. Soggy ground due to the excessive rainfall likely contributed to some trees being more susceptible to being blown over. Numerous power outages occurred. Two tornadoes occurred along the line of thunderstorms across southwest Indiana, both on the west and northwest sides of Evansville. Finally, the lowest barometric pressure of all-time was observed in Evansville (976.0 mb). The center of the low tracked from the bootheel of extreme southeast Missouri northeast right along the Ohio River. Very strong southwest winds occurred on the back side of the low pressure system.

On March 3rd, 2023, a historically strong low pressure system moved across the lower Ohio Valley, bringing heavy rainfall, severe weather, and most notably, very strong gradient winds as it moved across the region. On the synoptic scale, a shortwave upper-level trough located over the mid-Mississippi Valley became negatively tilted during the morning hours of March 3rd. A 120 knot 500 mb jet developed across central Kentucky and middle Tennessee in the presence of a very strong height gradient. The footprint of this jet core was transferred into the lower levels of the atmosphere, with a 70 knot jet at 850 mb present across the Ohio and Tennessee Valleys. The orientation of the shortwave trough aloft with respect to the low level cyclone was nearly ideal for mutual amplification, with both the surface low and the upper trough undergoing deepening during the morning and early afternoon hours on March 3rd. Ultimately, the surface low's minimum central pressure dropped to approximately 976 millibars near Vincennes, Indiana by mid-afternoon on the 3rd, creating an anomalously strong low-level pressure and height gradient across central Kentucky and southern Indiana.||Before the severe weather and strong gradient winds began, the first impact from this strong mid-latitude cyclone would come in the form of heavy rainfall, primarily across southern Indiana. With the strong low-level jet helping to advect warm and moist air northward, precipitable water values were anomalously high, ranging from 1.3 to 1.6 inches across southern Indiana and central Kentucky during the morning hours on March 3rd. Coupled with an intensifying low level warm frontal boundary which provided a large-scale lifting mechanism, this axis of high moisture content contributed to a broad swath of precipitation, which lasted through much of the morning and early afternoon hours across southern Indiana. Ultimately, many locations would receive between 3 and 6 inches of rain over the span of about 12 hours, causing isolated to scattered reports of flooding.||After the initial wave of precipitation associated with the warm front lifted into central Indiana, southern Indiana and central Kentucky would briefly be located in the warm sector of the cyclone during the late morning and early afternoon hours, providing an opportunity for severe weather. Due to the proximity of the surface low and the relatively limited period for destabilization, instability was very limited for this event, with between 250-750 J/kg MLCAPE present across central Kentucky and southern Indiana. However, with the extremely strong dynamics in place, wind shear parameters were incredibly high. Effective bulk shear generally ranged from 70-100 kt, while effective Storm Relative Helicity ranged from 300-600 m2/s2. In addition, low-level Storm Relative Helicity was maximized (300-400 m2/s2) just ahead of a broken line of low-topped supercells which went on to produce three EF-1 tornadoes across southern Indiana. Across central Kentucky, the main severe impacts would come from damaging straight-line winds within a broken quasi-linear convective system. While limited instability clearly reduced the overall strength of the QLCS, some convective cores were deep enough to pull higher momentum air from aloft down to the surface, causing scattered damage and wind gusts above 58 mph. A few additional severe wind gusts would also be produced by the aforementioned line of low-topped supercells as they moved across southern Indiana and northern Kentucky.||While the heavy rainfall and severe weather were important aspects of this system, the most widespread impacts from this historic system would come from extremely strong gradient winds immediately following the passage of showers and storms along the surface cold front. As was previously mentioned, the rapid cyclogenesis as the surface low moved into western Kentucky and southwestern Indiana created an unusually strong pressure gradient across the region, even for cool season mid-latitude cyclones. This strong pressure gradient, combined with a brief period of steeper low-level lapse rates across central Kentucky thanks to temporary clearing in the wake of the cold front, helped to bring extremely strong winds and wind gusts to all of central Kentucky and most of southern Indiana. Widespread sustained winds of 30-40 mph and wind gusts of 60-80 mph were observed across the area, causing widespread tree and power line damage, as well as more scattered occurrences of structural damage. At one point, around half a million customers were without power across the state of Kentucky, with several counties seeing a temporary near-total loss in electrical service. As the mid-level cyclone moved overhead during the early evening hours, cloud cover would return, helping to reduce wind speeds and gusts somewhat, with conditions continuing to calm through the overnight hours into the morning of March 4th.

An EF-1 tornado began just northeast of the community of Dale, IN, in northern Spencer County. Near the intersection of Spencer County Roads 2100 North and 500 East, a large barn had about half of its roof removed. A nearby house had its west facing windows blown in, suffered shingle and fascia damage, and an adjacent TV antenna was bent at its base parallel to the ground. Crossing Interstate 64, the tornado overturned a semitrailer about one mile east of the interchange with US 231. Along the Spencer-Dubois County line, several large trees were snapped at the base or uprooted. Additionally, a couple of homes received minor roof and fascia damage. Peak winds were estimated near 95 mph. The tornado continued moving into Dubois County.

An EF-1 tornado formed on the west side of Dubois County, embedded within a line of severe thunderstorms. It first touched down near a barn in the city of Duff, leaving only one wall and the area`s tornado siren standing. The tornado then crossed flat farmland, not causing noticeable damage again until it reached the corner of 450 W and 100S, where a barn had significant roof damage and a home had shingle and siding damage. A private citizen had video footage of a narrow condensation funnel looking in the direction of this damage.||From here a continuous path of damage was noted by the Emergency Manager, going|through neighborhoods along Skyview Dr and Schuetter Dr west of Jasper. The tornado last caused damage in the Grassland Hills subdivision, causing multiple trees to snap near W 31st St. At this point some tree top snapping was noted as the tornado lifted.

An EF-1 tornado began just east of Dale, IN in northern Spencer County, near the intersection of Spencer County Roads 2100 North and 500 East. It continued to the north-northeast damaging property before crossing into Dubois County, where it snapped or uprooted several large trees along the county line. A couple of homes received minor roof and fascia damage. The tornado passed just northeast of Johnsburg, downing several large tree limbs and damaging a metal farm building before dissipating.

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 tornado watch, issued at 17:17 UTC and running to 19:36 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 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 16:11 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 Evansville,IN radar (KVWX), 68 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 19:09 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

21 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.