Thunderstorm Wind in Martin County, Indiana

Thunderstorm winds uprooted tree across road near US Highway 50, northwest of Shoals.

Hot and humid lower levels under weak vertical wind shear promoted a couple rounds of widely scattered afternoon and evening showers and pulse thunderstorms across the Midwest. A more organized cluster of convection tracked northward through southwestern Indiana during the early evening. Here the combination of very high downward CAPE values around 1200 J/kg and strong boundary layer lapse rates set the stage for wet microbursts, with this potential being realized by the few strongest storms whose updrafts approached 30,000 feet above ground level. Resulting damaging winds were confined to Vigo, Daviess and Martin Counties.