EF0 Tornado — Decatur, Indiana

2024-05-07 · near Springhill, Decatur, Indiana

Event narrative

This last of five central Indiana tornadoes tracked slightly north of east, from north of County Road 640 North between County Roads 400 East and 550 East to extreme northeastern Decatur County, west-northwest of the intersection of County Road 750 North and County Line Road. Damage was primarily to utility poles downed along the north to south aligned County Roads 550 East (3 poles downed) and 700 East (6 older poles bent or broken with wire thrown 80-100 yards east). A small patch of wheat was also bent over where the vortex crossed 860 East, with a large tree limb present of unknown origin. Farm buildings near the damage along County Road 700 East sustained little or no damage. Peak winds were 81 mph where the poles where downed.

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 → (39.4395, -85.3909)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1166365. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.