EF1 Tornado — Steuben, Indiana

2025-03-30 · near Hudson, Steuben, Indiana

Event narrative

An NWS damage survey confirmed a brief QLCS tornado embedded within a broad swath of damaging straight line winds in southwestern Steuben County, Indiana, on March 30th, 2025. The tornado likely originated in a field just north of Little Turkey Lake around 5:28 PM, before racing to the northeast. Several trees outbuildings were damaged to the northeast of Little Turkey Lake, most notably including a collapsed metal barn. Despite very limited ground evidence due to primarily open fields to the northeast, the tornado likely continued in a non continuous path over the next several minutes. A 50 to 100 yard swath of trees were snapped or uprooted on the southwest side of Long Lake, just west of W 500 S. The tornado then crossed Long Lake, before uprooting and snapping several trees and damaging homes along W Long Lake Road. No injuries were reported. Notable tree damage was observed in the boy scout camp just to the north. Aerial drone footage confirmed a convergent pattern to the downed trees, thus indicating the presence of a tornadic circulation along the damage path. Damage was consistent with a high end EF-0 to low end EF-1 tornado with maximum winds near 90 MPH. The tornado is believed to have ended shortly after, around 5:35 PM. In addition to the tornado, numerous trees and power lines were damaged due to straight line winds in excess of 75 MPH, along with some homes suffering roof and siding damage.

Wider weather episode

A cold front pushed into the area during the afternoon and evening hours, interacting with decent shear and MLCAPE to allow for numerous thunderstorm development. Pockets of damaging winds occurred along with a total of six confirmed tornadoes (three in far southern Lower Michigan and three in northern Indiana).

View location on OpenStreetMap → (41.5400, -85.1100)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1241358. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.