EF0 tornado, Silverville to Avoca, Indiana, March 15, 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

March 15, 2025

Touchdown

4:53 AM EDT (08:53 UTC)

Lifted

4:59 AM EDT (08:59 UTC)

On the ground

6 minutes

Path length

6.2 miles (10.0 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$120,000

County

Lawrence County

Touchdown point

38.850, -86.676

Lift-off point

38.896, -86.582

Record number

2503150253-01

28 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 96 mph.

• Several trees uprooted to west and southwest.
• tree on house, roof penetrated.
• Garage door blown inward with wind dislocating a concrete foundation on the west and northern portions of the garage. No mortar or support to hold the foundation together. No anchoring. Structure was stable, but damaged.
• Large oak, but partially rotted.

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

A potent low pressure system generated a line of strong to severe thunderstorms that moved across central Indiana. Storms ahead of the line also become severe. Widespread wind damage along with a few tornadoes occurred. Tens of thousands of people were without power.

A weak tornado began three-quarters of a mile southwest of the Silverville community, and tracked in an overall east-northeast direction before ending about 1.5 miles west-northwest of the Feldun Purdue Agircultural Center. Several farm buildings were impacted amid sporadic tree damage through and east-northeast of Silverville. The tornado then tracked through wooded areas north of Indiana Route 158 before impacting mostly wooded areas on the north side of the Fayetteville area. Southwest of Old Farm Road an old shed was destroyed along with some minor barn roof damage. The tornado skipped around causing sporadic damage between Old Farm Road and Tripleton Pike before ending a quarter-mile east-southeast of the intersection of Tripleton Pike and Indiana Creek Camp Road.||There was clear evidence of trees blown to the southwest along the northern portion of Old Farm Road, but otherwise it was often difficult to differentiate straight line wind and tornado damage. The vortex also likely skipped along its track, and may have been just off the ground for some of the path. Maximum winds estimated at 80 mph.

A short lived tornado began in a ravine about 0.4 of a mile east-northeast of the intersection of Indiana Routes 37 and 54. Tracking to the north-northeast, the majority of the damage was to the west of the southwest corner of Kentucky Hollow Road where a shed was completely destroyed along with significant damage to the residence's porch. The house saw some shingle damage with insulation blown on all 4 sides of the structure, while tornadic winds blew in the garage and partially blew out the cinder block foundation. The track ended on the west side of the Needmore community. Maximum winds estimated at 85 mph.

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

23 minutes of warning. NWS IND issued a tornado warning for this county at 08:30 UTC, 23 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 09:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 06:46 UTC and running to 09:59 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 Marginal Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 05:34 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), 98 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 08:54 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

49 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.