EF0 Tornado — Shelby, Indiana

2024-05-07 · near Middletown, Shelby, Indiana

Event narrative

This second of five central Indiana tornadoes tracked slightly south of east, from just west of County Road 725 East to just west of County Road 800 East (ending 200 feet west of the Rush County line). Numerous small to medium size trees were found uprooted or with large limbs broken off. Nearby homes along County Road 725 East had little damage other than some shingles off and gutters torn off. A very old barn had some roof damage. Drone footage showed a few trees had larger limbs broken/snapped close to ending point of this line. Winds were 74 to 85 mph; peak intensity occurred when it was first spawned and also just east of County Road 725.

Wider weather episode

At times robust south-southwesterly breezes brought unseasonably high dewpoints in the upper 60s and temperatures around 80 degrees, which led a favorable set-up for severe thunderstorms that also included high low-level helicity, and a 40-knot low-level jet stream ahead of an approaching cold front, all under adequate divergence aloft from the right exit region of a cyclonically curved jet streak.

Numerous rotating thunderstorms resulted through late day and evening hours, which produced widespread marginally severe hail across ten counties along and to the east-southeast of the Interstate 70 corridor, with strongest cells producing 1.50-1.75 inch hail and/or widely scattered wind damage from Clay County to Decatur County, as well as five weak tornadoes within Shelby, Rush and Decatur Counties. The tornadoes caused mainly tree damage and some minor structural damage. Several supercells actually tracked over the same areas where tornadoes occurred, which made video footage a key part of proper event verification. Some of the tornadoes may have actually had longer track lengths, but this could not be deciphered given the broad open farm fields. Witness reports indicated that some of the tornadoes were small, rope tornadoes that bounced across the landscape.

Less intense thunderstorms north of the Interstate 70 corridor produced small hail over a few zones, as well as a funnel cloud in Tipton County before an early evening cell downed a few trees in eastern Randolph County.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (39.4703, -85.6448)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1166361. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.