EF0 tornado, Jay County, Indiana, August 11, 2026

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, as surveyed

EF0, preliminary

Date

August 11, 2026

Touchdown

7:58 AM EDT (11:58 UTC)

Lifted

8:00 AM EDT (12:00 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

0.6 miles (1.0 km)

Path width

15 yards (14 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Jay County

Touchdown point

40.314, -84.926

Lift-off point

40.310, -84.916

Highest wind the damage implies

65 mph

Surveyed by

NWS IWX

The office's name for it

SouthernJay

Survey last edited

August 19, 2026

Record number

None yet. SPC numbers 2026 in the spring of 2027.

Jay County Emergency Management found a narrow damage path through a mature soybean crop as they were traveling on S 350 E in extreme southern Jay County. This crop damage seemed to be going from NW to SE. An original short EF-U tornado was designated as there was originally no evidence of this tornado hitting one of the designated damage indicators. Due to improving weather, emergency management was able to get their drone up and found clear evidence that the tornado began farther to the northwest in another field of crops. It traversed southeast, coming very close to a property which is located along the county boundary. It is in this area that the tornado was likely the widest and most intense based on crop damage. It then crossed S 300 E and continued southeast. It appears to have struck a small cluster of trees where it broke several large limbs, earning the designation of an EF-0. It quickly terminated after that before reaching the county boundary road. Special thanks to Jay County's Office of Emergency Management for the assistance in documenting this storm.

Written by NWS IWX in the NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit. A survey is revised as better evidence arrives.

2 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS IWX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EFU. The highest wind the damage implies is 65 mph.

• EMA Found a narrow path through a soybean field heading southeast.

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

2 minutes of warning. NWS IWX issued a tornado warning for this county at 11:56 UTC, 2 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 12:20 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 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 05:00 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 Northern Indiana radar (KIWX), 134 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 11:55 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 2026 tornado in IndianaEvery tornado in Indiana since 1950Warnings in force in Indiana nowThe forecast where you are

28 more have been surveyed in the United States that day, so far.

Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. A survey can be revised, so the rating, the path and the casualties can all still change.

NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit, the record the survey teams file from the damage, and NOAA Storm Prediction Center storm reports. Neither is the official database for 2026, which SPC publishes in the spring of 2027.