EF0 tornado in Boone County, Indiana

Continuation of the Montgomery County EF1 tornado, which ultimately entered Clinton County before reaching EF2 intensity, (a secondary, weaker EF0 tornado simultaneously crossed from Montgomery to Boone County, tracking about 1.0-1.5 miles southeast of this tornado). Damage along this Boone County segment was mainly along County Road 900 North, where panels from the northeast side of a barn roof were ripped off and carried 0.25 to 0.50 miles east and northeast. Also, a path of uprooted hardwood trees occurred just northeast of the barn, consistent with high-end EF0-intensity winds as strong as 85 mph.

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.