EF1 Tornado — Floyd, Indiana

2023-05-07 · near Georgetown, Floyd, Indiana

Event narrative

At 3424 Hamby Road, several trees were snapped and uprooted. Trees were facing from the east northeast to a southeasterly direction. Branches from the trees were scattered from the northeast to the southeast direction. An outbuilding had some siding and gutter damage. Of particular note was a large, healthy red oak tree that was uprooted with a significant root ball, which hit the far corner of the neighbor's house, doing structural damage to the roof and gutters.

The vast majority of the damage was to the trees, and just off the ground. The tornado topped a few trees at the edge of their property by the forested area, before lifting. Wind speeds of 90 mph were estimated, with a width of 100 yards, across this very short tornado track.

Wider weather episode

During the early morning hours of May 7th, a cluster of strong and occasionally severe thunderstorms over central Illinois gradually grew upscale into a bowing line of storms as it moved southeast into central and southern Indiana toward dawn. Ahead of the developing quasi-linear convective system, a moderately unstable environment was present across southern Indiana, with MLCAPE ranging from around 500 J/kg in the east to around 1500 J/kg in the west. The line of thunderstorms generally produced sub-severe wind gusts across southern Indiana, as the strongest winds remained aloft thanks to a residual nocturnal stable layer. However, as storms approached the Ohio River, a few discrete cells moving from west to east were overtaken by the line which was moving from north-northwest to south-southeast. In the fifteen minutes or so after these cell mergers took place, five brief spin-up tornadoes occurred in Floyd County, producing pockets of structural and tree damage across the county. All of the tornadoes produced either EF0 or EF1 damage, with estimated wind speeds generally between 75 and 105 mph. Minor straight-line wind damage was also observed as this line of storms moved through. The severe threat ended by 10 a.m. as storms pushed southward into central Kentucky.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (38.3234, -85.9919)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1103147. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.