EF0 tornado, Russiaville to Sycamore, Indiana, March 31, 2023

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

March 31, 2023

Touchdown

11:11 PM EDT (03:11 UTC)

Lifted

11:12 PM EDT (03:12 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.9 miles (1.4 km)

Path width

10 yards (9 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$150,000

County

Howard County

Touchdown point

40.397, -86.274

Lift-off point

40.407, -86.266

Record number

2303312111-01

23 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 110 mph.

• Unidirectional, most of structure intact
• Decent splatter but items generally in the same direction
• Splatter not great. Significant roof damage
• Pine tree fell southwest with other pine damage. Minor home damage as well

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

A strong, occluding storm system over the Upper Midwest produced a deep column of strong southwesterly winds over the Midwest on the afternoon and evening of the 31st.|This pattern generated an inordinate amount of vertical wind shear. The overall southwesterly flow also brought rather mild and somewhat humid air into the region, which was adequately unstable given noticeably colder air aloft, especially over the southwestern quadrant of Indiana.||Resulting thunderstorms were able to mix down the stronger winds to the surface as damaging straight line gusts, while a rather low freezing level promoted isolated large hail. Ten tornadoes occurred across the region: 5 from a rotating supercell thunderstorm that tracked roughly parallel to and about 20 miles south of Interstate 70, and 5 others spawned from a squall line's northern book-end vortex that impacted north-central central Indiana. The supercell's first two tornadoes (both EF3) caused a combined 5 fatalities...before the supercell spawned two more strong tornadoes (EF2/EF3), with the cell's final EF3 inflicting major damage on a warehouse in Whiteland (Johnson Co.). The (northern) squall line's first tornado was an EF2 that impacted mostly rural areas...while the squall line's four following tornadoes were all weak (EF0/EF1), with the final three spawned over Howard County, concluding with a longer tracking EF1 that injured one person.

This first of the three squall line tornadoes to impact Howard County touched down in a field with a few trees. The tornado impacted a home causing tree and barn damage, with maximum winds of 80 mph. One tree top was pulled back towards the home to the southwest. The tornado then quickly lifted in a farm field nearby.

This second of three tornadoes in Howard County (and the county's second EF0), tracked briefly between Russiaville and Indian Heights. Damage occurred to an out building before a playground set was thrown to the northeast, with trees near the area pointing to the east-southeast. Further damage occurred east of County Road 350 West to an attached garage and small barns: wood splinters were driven into siding, a car was moved and turned 45 degrees, and a large piece of plywood was stuck between remaining branches of tree, all from winds as great as 80 mph.

This was the third tornado (and only EF1) to impact Howard County. The tornado began in a rural field south of a homestead with two barns, home, and mobile home. One small barn was completely destroyed along with the mobile home which caused a serious injury. The home and larger barn had lesser damage. This tornado continued to the northeast, damaging the trees, homes and barns of several homesteads, with maximum winds of 110 mph. The tornado continued into a larger neighborhood near US Highway 35 where it caused mainly roof and tree damage to tree rows.

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

29 minutes of warning. NWS IND issued a tornado warning for this county at 02:42 UTC, 29 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 03:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 00:00 UTC and running to 04:47 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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 01:04 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), 77 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 03:11 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

126 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 127 of them

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.