EF1 Tornado — Orange, Indiana

2023-08-06 · near French Lick, Orange, Indiana

Event narrative

The tornado began along S Indiana Ave where several large hardwood trees had branches snap towards the east. Some homes saw side wall paneling damage as well as roofing cover damage. Damage continued along W Summit Circle Dr where several more large hardwoods were uprooted and snapped.

The main area of damage is located just south of the downtown area of French Lick on Skyline Drive. This is an area of higher elevation that saw multiple large hardwood trees snapped, some houses saw shingles and side paneling damage. This is where the highest wind speeds of 107 mph would have occurred based on damage making this tornado an EF1.The tornado then made its way northeast to S Summit St where one home saw significant sidewall damage on both its north and south side, as well as paneling damage.

The tornado then tracked southeast towards W County Road 100 S where it appeared to weaken. Several smaller hardwoods saw their limbs broken off and debris was spread out towards the north. A small sandbox outbuilding had its roof torn off and

debris fell just slightly east of the structure. Surrounding trees were bent towards the east and northeast. The winds in this area topped out at 85 mph based on the damage seen.

Wider weather episode

Several individual storms moved across Missouri and Illinois before combining into a line of convection as it moved across southern Indiana. The line interacted with the low level jet to produce 6 tornadoes across 4 Indiana counties, including a long track tornado that traveled 25.89 miles through Dubois and Orange Counties. This set the record for the longest known tornado track for the month of August within the NWS Louisville County Warning Area. Other parts of the line surged and caused tree and power line damage along and north of Interstate 64 across southern Indiana and into the greater Louisville, Kentucky area. Additional wind and hail reports were received from the Bluegrass region of Kentucky.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (38.5429, -86.6233)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1119010. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.