EF1 tornado, Shipshewana Fld Arpt to Howe, Indiana, June 11, 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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF1, preliminary

Date

June 11, 2026

Touchdown

10:59 PM EDT (02:59 UTC)

Lifted

11:06 PM EDT (03:06 UTC)

On the ground

7 minutes

Path length

9.9 miles (15.9 km)

Path width

1,300 yards (1189 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

1

County

LaGrange County

Touchdown point

41.722, -85.647

Lift-off point

41.740, -85.468

Highest wind the damage implies

100 mph

Surveyed by

NWS IWX

The office's name for it

Shipshewana

Survey last edited

June 22, 2026

Record number

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

The same storm that produced the EF-2 tornado in Bristol, IN continued eastward into LaGrange County. While radar suggested the correlation coefficient signature persisted between Bristol and this tornado (albeit weaker), damage was very sparse, and there was not enough confidence or evidence to definitively connect the two areas of concern. Due to a 10-mile separation, it was determined to treat these as two separate tornadoes.

The tornado in LaGrange paralleled SR 120, producing an impressive swath of tree damage and causing visible damage to barns and center pivots. Given the time elapsed between the storm and the ground survey, it is likely some homes had already been repaired. The circulation reached a maximum width of 0.75 miles on the north side of Shipshewana, with a maximum intensity estimated to be EF-1 at 100 mph. The tornado occluded on the western side of Twin Lakes before a broader swath of straight-line wind damage took over in the Howe, IN and Sturgis, MI areas.

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

68 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 115 mph.

• Emailed photos of pine tree snapped at the base.
• Emailed photos of one large tree uprooted. One tree snapped several feet from the base; some sign of rot. Author states other property damage occurred; roofs, outbuildings etc.
• Full roof reconstruction underway, rafters included. Some roof panels in treeline to the NNE. Perhaps dozens of trees damaged to the NNE of here. Some narrower trunks snapped toward top.
• 3 to 4 sections of center pivot flipped. West of here, another larger section flipped as well

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

A squall line raced through northern Indiana and spawned numerous tornadoes. Most tornadoes were narrow and lasted less then 10 minutes. Additional areas of straight line wind damage were noted as well.

The same storm that produced the EF-2 tornado in Bristol, IN|continued eastward into LaGrange County. While radar suggested|the correlation coefficient signature persisted between Bristol|and this tornado (albeit weaker), damage was very sparse, and|there was not enough confidence or evidence to definitively|connect the two areas of concern. Due to a 10-mile separation, it|was determined to treat these as two separate tornadoes.The|tornado in LaGrange paralleled SR 120, producing an impressive|swath of tree damage and causing visible damage to barns and|center pivots. Given the time elapsed between the storm and the|ground survey, it is likely some homes had already been repaired.|The circulation reached a maximum width of 0.75 miles on the|north side of Shipshewana, with a maximum intensity estimated to|be EF-1 at 100 mph. The tornado occluded on the western side of|Twin Lakes before a broader swath of straight-line wind damage|took over in the Howe, IN and Sturgis, MI areas.

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

8 minutes of warning. NWS IWX issued a tornado warning for this county at 02:51 UTC, 8 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 03:11 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 00:08 UTC and running to 03:44 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 01:00 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.

Sturgis/Kirsch (IRS), 13 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Northern Indiana radar (KIWX), 43 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 03:00 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

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

All 66 of them

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.