Thunderstorm Wind in Dubois County, Indiana

A tree was in the roadway at East Ellsworth and North 900 East. There was another large tree, 2 feet in diameter, blocking both lanes on the 7800 block of East State Road 164.

During the late evening and overnight hours March 15th into March 16th, a strong upper level trough and associated cold front moved across the Ohio Valley. Ahead of the cold front, temperatures were in the 70s with dew point temperatures in the upper 50s and low 60s. This corridor of modest low-level destabilization contained between 250 and 500 J/kg of MLCAPE which was oriented immediately ahead of the surface front and the main line of showers and thunderstorms. With a corridor of 80 knot mid-level winds approaching from the west, effective bulk shear was between 40 and 50 knots for this event, creating a typical high-shear, low-CAPE setup for central Kentucky and southern Indiana. Given that the primary forcing mechanism was lifting along the cold front, convection evolved into a quasi-linear convective system that moved across southern Indiana during the late evening hours on March 15th into the early morning hours on March 16th. The main observed severe hazard was wind damage from straight-line winds, with scattered damage to trees and power lines being observed across southern Indiana. Brief mesovortices developed within the line of storms, prompting a tornado warning; however, no tornadoes were observed in southern Indiana during this event. The line of storms pushed east of the area by around 2 AM on March 16th, with much cooler air rushing into the area behind the cold front.