EF0 tornado, Holtonville, Indiana, April 2, 2025

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

April 2, 2025

Touchdown

10:57 PM EDT (02:57 UTC)

Lifted

10:58 PM EDT (02:58 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.1 miles (0.1 km)

Path width

20 yards (18 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$30,000

County

Lawrence County

Touchdown point

38.904, -86.346

Lift-off point

38.904, -86.345

Record number

2504022057-01

1 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS IND, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 83 mph.

• Pole barn lost all of its walls but its south side wall. Anchoring of structure under code. Debris from the pole barn blown to the west of the structure. Two 2x4s embedded into the ground facing W/NW on the east side of State Route 446.

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

A strong low pressure system generated a line of strong to severe thunderstorms that started in Illinois and moved across central Indiana. Multiple severe storms were embedded within the line and some of these produced tornadoes. Eleven tornadoes impacted central Indiana, ten of which occurred along an overall west-southwest to east-northeast area from north of Terre Haute to north of Muncie. Four of these events, from Hendricks County to Delaware County, were secondary tornadoes that tracked parallel to longer duration tornadoes. Three tornadoes combined to impact western and northern portions of the Indianapolis Metro area, including an EF2 in Hendricks County that caused the episode's only injury. In addition to the tornadoes widespread wind damage occurred with gusts over 80+ mph reported.

This eleventh and final tornado to impact central Indiana touched down very briefly in a rural area southeast of Heltonville, immediately northeast of the intersection of Indiana Route 446 and Mundell Church Road. Here, damage was caused to a pole barn with debris blown to the northwest: the south facing wall was the only wall left standing with damage from the barn to the west of the structure. Two 2x4s were also embedded into the ground facing to the west-northwest. As the barn's anchoring was under code, peak wind gusts were estimated at only 80 mph.

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

33 minutes of warning. NWS IND issued a tornado warning for this county at 02:24 UTC, 33 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 03:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:17 UTC and running to 03:00 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 0.15 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 00:55 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), 90 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 02:57 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 2025 tornado in IndianaEvery tornado in Indiana since 1950Warnings in force in Indiana nowThe forecast where you are

87 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 88 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.