EF1 Tornado — Floyd, Indiana

2023-05-07 · near Blackiston Mill, Floyd, Indiana

Event narrative

The tornado first touched down on the Indiana University Southeast campus, on the west side of the Natural Science and Nursing building. There was roof and siding damage to the building. Trees between the parking lot and Grenadier Drive were

facing east, north, and to the northwest.

Power poles were snapped along Highway 111 (Grant Line Road). Apartments along Countryside Drive had shingle, gutter and downspout damage. However, one of the apartments had a large section of its roof removed with debris being thrown in all

directions. Two people in the apartment building were injured with head lacerations. Shingles were thrown several hundred yards. Trees were uprooted, snapped and twisted along Countryside Drive and Melvyn Drive. Trees were facing from the northwest to the southeasterly direction. Wind speeds in this area were 100 mph

with a width of 125 yards. One house on Melvyn Drive had no damage except for a piece of gutter that was thrown as a missile in a northerly direction through a window into their living room. Thankfully no one was injured at this location.

One outbuilding was thrown to the south, while another outbuilding was thrown to the north, three houses apart. Powerlines were snapped, and one large piece of roofing material from the apartment was impaled into the ground. There was numerous wooden and metal fence damage between Melvyn Drive and Preswick Square. A

very big, healthy oak tree was uprooted and was facing an east northeasterly direction. Wind damage in this area was consistent with an EF1 tornado, winds of 105 miles per hour, and a width of 100 yards.

The last damage was just on the other side of Klerner Lane, which was some low-end EF1 90 mph topped tree damage. In addition to a ground survey, drone photography was used, and there were several videos of a funnel on social media.

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 → (38.3433, -85.8179)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1103151. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.