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EF1 tornado in Floyd County, Indiana

Tornado May 7, 2023 · Floyd County, Indiana

EF1
Rating
0.4 mi
Path length
100 yd
Path width
EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 100 yards (0.06 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF1 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF1 is moderate damage: roofs badly stripped, mobile homes pushed off foundations or overturned, windows broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 86–110 mph. The rating comes from a survey of the worst damage after the storm, not from a wind measurement, so it says as much about what the tornado hit as about how strong it was.

What the National Weather Service wrote

The first damage point towards the western end of McCarthy Knob Road was some straight-line wind damage of some cedars and maple trees of 75 mph. Shortly east of there was more widespread tree damage on the west side of the road and up the hill. There were softwood and hardwood trees twisted, snapped, topped, and uprooted for almost a half a mile which ended near the intersection of Budd Road.

A tree fell on the back side of the house, causing some gutter and fascia damage. There were several power lines down and two power poles pushed over. The maximum tornado winds were 90 mph.

The wider storm

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.

Began near Edwardsville (38.2462, -85.9028).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

4 more tornadoes the National Weather Service filed under this storm episode.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 1103153. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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