EF0 tornado in Shelby County, Indiana
Tornado May 7, 2024 · Shelby County, Indiana
NOAA records this tornado county by county. Its path ran through Shelby County → Rush County; the totals above are for the whole tornado.
The path drawn at its surveyed width of 50 yards (0.03 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.
What the National Weather Service wrote
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.
The wider storm
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.
Began near Middletown (39.4703, -85.6448).
Other tornadoes from the same storm system
3 more tornadoes the National Weather Service filed under this storm episode.
Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 1166361. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.
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