EF0 tornado, Johnstown, Indiana, June 21, 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

June 21, 2026

Touchdown

7:00 PM EDT (23:00 UTC)

Lifted

7:02 PM EDT (23:02 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

0.3 miles (0.5 km)

Path width

80 yards (73 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Knox County

Touchdown point

38.785, -87.364

Lift-off point

38.785, -87.359

Highest wind the damage implies

85 mph

Surveyed by

NWS IND

The office's name for it

Bicknell

Survey last edited

June 25, 2026

Record number

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

Drone footage shared from Knox County Emergency Manager shows a swath of damage west of Windmill Road in Knox County associated with a Tornado. The footage shows some large limbs knocked down to the west of high-tension power lines. Then to the east some missing or pulled up metal roof panels of an outbuilding are observed in the video. The strongest damage was observed closer to Windmill Road where large limbs of several hardwood trees were destroyed. Then a metal outbuilding had the roof completely removed and lofted. Panels are observed to the north of the building and the debris field to the east of the structure supports tornadic activity. Based on satellite imagery believe the structure was open to the southeast allowing for an easier inflow of wind into the structure which allowed the roof to be lofted. This resulted in a lowering of the wind speed given the damage indicator. A brief TDS is also evident on radar directly over this location. The tornado then lifted as it approached Windmill Road with some large limbs down along the road. No additional damage was evident to the east of the road.

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

5 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 85 mph.

• Based on satellite imagery believe the structure was open to the southeast allowing for an easier uplift of the roof structure and a lowering of the estimated wind speed.

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

The 21st late day brought a quickly-evolving set-up featuring an increasingly moist column supported by an approaching Middle Mississippi Valley upper short wave trough, strengthening flow amid a warm frontal zone draped over the local central Indiana region providing 35-50KT of effective wind shear, and advection of higher low-level dewpoints with daytime heating which provided sufficient destabilization. Severe rotating supercells tracked across Illinois into southern central Indiana as they aligned into a Mesoscale Convective Vortex (MCV).||Wind damage occurred within nine central Indiana zones and as far east as Brown County, five (mainly EF-0) tornadoes were focused in Owen County and points south and west, while the region's farthest southwestern counties experienced scattered flash flooding following downpours from multiple supercells. A final EF-0 torando and flash flooding also occurred in Bartholomew County. This Bartholomew County EF-0 was Indiana's 63rd tornado in 2026...a new yearly state tornado record (73 events) was set later in the evening, with 74 tallied by the end of June 21st.

An EF-0 tornado with path length of 0.30 miles and a maximum path width of 80 yards occurred west of Bicknell. Damage mainly to large tree limbs and metal outbuilding roofs. Peak winds were 85 mph.

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

24 minutes of warning. NWS IND issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:36 UTC, 24 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 18:29 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 19:57 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 Evansville,IN radar (KVWX), 66 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:03 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

43 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.