EF0 Tornado — Johnson, Indiana

2023-03-31 · near Hopewell, Johnson, Indiana

Event narrative

This was the rotating supercell's fourth tornado, and the first and weaker of two tornadoes spawned in Johnson County. The tornado started to the north-northeast of the village of Providence, although most of the sporadic tree damage noted in the town was from straight line winds, with slightly more intense tree damage seen from the tornado. The tornado continued to move east-northeast and crossed Indiana Route 135, with multiple power lines damaged and downed across the highway. Metal roofing of a barn just east of Route 135 was peeled back from winds nearing 85 mph. The tornado continued to the east-northeast towards Indiana Route 144, but lifted just before reaching this highway, southeast of Bargersville. Sporadic tree damage was noted to the south of Route 144.

Wider weather episode

A strong, occluding storm system over the Upper Midwest produced a deep column of strong southwesterly winds over the Midwest on the afternoon and evening of the 31st.

This pattern generated an inordinate amount of vertical wind shear. The overall southwesterly flow also brought rather mild and somewhat humid air into the region, which was adequately unstable given noticeably colder air aloft, especially over the southwestern quadrant of Indiana.

Resulting thunderstorms were able to mix down the stronger winds to the surface as damaging straight line gusts, while a rather low freezing level promoted isolated large hail. Ten tornadoes occurred across the region: 5 from a rotating supercell thunderstorm that tracked roughly parallel to and about 20 miles south of Interstate 70, and 5 others spawned from a squall line's northern book-end vortex that impacted north-central central Indiana. The supercell's first two tornadoes (both EF3) caused a combined 5 fatalities...before the supercell spawned two more strong tornadoes (EF2/EF3), with the cell's final EF3 inflicting major damage on a warehouse in Whiteland (Johnson Co.). The (northern) squall line's first tornado was an EF2 that impacted mostly rural areas...while the squall line's four following tornadoes were all weak (EF0/EF1), with the final three spawned over Howard County, concluding with a longer tracking EF1 that injured one person.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (39.4955, -86.1738)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1089569. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.