High Wind — Putnam, Indiana

2023-03-03 · Putnam, Indiana

Event narrative

Gradient winds uprooted a tree that crashed into the top of the drivers side of a car. The driver and a passenger were killed by the falling tree with two additional injuries.

Wider weather episode

A record breaking low pressure system impacted Indiana on March 3rd initially bringing rain and strong to damaging gradient winds to the area. During the early afternoon hours, a weakening area of storms moved into southern Indiana and caused isolated damaging winds gusts while the gradient winds continued to gradually increase causing additional tree damage and power outages. Across northern Indiana, rain then transitioned to snow with light but non-impactful accumulations. Peak power outages across the state were briefly over 40,000 with much of them along the Ohio River where the thunderstorm winds were more widespread.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1074596. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.