EF2 tornado, (Bmg)Mnroe Co Arpt B to Hunters, Indiana, February 19, 2026

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 mph

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. EF2111 to 135 mphthis tornado

   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

EF2, preliminary

Date

February 19, 2026

Touchdown

6:57 PM EST (23:57 UTC)

Lifted

7:06 PM EST (00:06 UTC)

On the ground

9 minutes

Path length

3.7 miles (6.0 km)

Path width

440 yards (402 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Monroe County

Touchdown point

39.143, -86.639

Lift-off point

39.163, -86.575

Highest wind the damage implies

120 mph

Surveyed by

NWS IND

The office's name for it

MonroeCoTor

Survey last edited

February 21, 2026

Record number

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

The tornado first developed around 6:56PM EST in wooded areas west of the Monroe County Airport before rapidly intensifying as it moved into a small neighborhood just west of the airport. This area experienced extensive tree damage along with multiple points of structural damage to homes, with the most intense damage estimated at 120 mph.

As the tornado progressed eastward, it caused damage to an airplane hangar at the airport. While passing over the airfield, the KBMG ASOS recorded a wind gust of 70 mph. The tornado then continued east of the airport, damaging numerous homes before striking a newly constructed neighborhood, where additional high-end EF1 to low-end EF2 damage was observed. Additional EF1 damage was observed to the northeast at an apartment complex.

The tornado dissipated around 7:06PM EST near the business district west of I-69, after producing damage to a bank overhang and causing roofing damage to several warehouse structures.

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

24 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS IND, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 120 mph.

• Extensive tree damage and a few small barns completely destroyed
• Fencing bent in the inflow winds
• Not great anchoring to garage walls
• Tree potentially compromised wall

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

A strengthening storm system lifted through the Middle Mississippi Valley on the 19th, dragging its warm frontal zone northward through the Midwest, and bringing near-record high temperatures and anomalous dewpoints into central Indiana. Multiple rounds of severe weather occurred over the region, from early morning large hail in two far-northern zones, covering roads in Warren County, to more organized evening severe weather from rotating supercell thunderstorms. Through the evening of the 19th, the destabilized atmosphere combined with a stregthening low-level jet stream that progressed eastward into the region, boosting 0-1 km wind shear as high as 300 m2/s2. A resultant cluster of discrete late-day to evening supercells were focused along the frontal zone, near or south of the Interstate 70 corridor, and produced scattered large hail over 6 counties and isolated wind damage to trees and/or power poles in 4 counties. ||A stronger supercell with a history of producing two weak tornadoes in Crawford County, Illinois, continued into central Indiana, spawning an EF-0 tornado in Sullivan County, an intense EF-2 just west of Bloomington that caused extensive structural damage to homes, apartments, and airport facilities, and a brief EF-U in Decatur County; this cell also produced ping-pong ball (1.50-inch diameter) sized hail in Greene and Monroe Counties.

An EF-2 tornado tracked 3.73 miles through west-central Monroe County, across the Bloomington Airport up to the Interstate Route 69 interchange with Indiana Route 48. The maximum path width was 440 yards with the tornado causing significant damage to neighborhoods, apartments, businesses, and portions of the airport. Extensive tree damage also occurred.||The tornado first developed in wooded areas west of the airport before rapidly intensifying as it moved into a small neighborhood just west of the airport. This area experienced the event's most intense winds, extensive tree damage along with multiple points of structural damage to homes. As the tornado progressed eastward, it caused damage to an airplane hangar. While passing over the airfield, the KBMG ASOS recorded a wind gust of 70 mph. The tornado continued east-northeast, damaging numerous homes before striking a newly constructed neighborhood where additional high-end EF-1 to low-end EF-2 damage occurred. Additional EF-1 damage was observed further northeast at an apartment complex. After producing damage to a bank overhang and causing roofing damage to several warehouse structures, the tornado dissipated near the east end of this business district, immediately west of I-69. Peak wind speeds were estimated at 120 mph.

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

18 minutes of warning. NWS IND issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:39 UTC, 18 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 18:21 UTC and running to 04:00 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 Enhanced Risk, with a 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 19:59 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.

Bloomington (BMG), 1 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The Indianapolis radar (KIND), 68 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:54 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 2026 tornado in IndianaEvery tornado in Indiana since 1950Warnings in force in Indiana nowThe forecast where you are

10 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.