EF4 Tornado — Washington, Indiana
2012-03-02 · near Freddricksburg, Washington, Indiana
Event narrative
This EF-4 tornado that ultimately stayed on the ground for 49 miles across several counties touched down just south of Fredricksburg. Several trees were snapped off with estimated EF-1 damage along a path of 30 yards wide along the south fork of the Blue Lick River. After crossing farmland, the tornado widened and intensified quickly, toppling a high tension metal power structure near the intersection of Homers Chapel and Fredricksburg Roads. Damage at that location was consistent with 130 mph winds.
High tension wires were downed and trees snapped along West End Road just north of Shanks Hill Road. The tornado continued to intensify as it crossed State Route 135 at Dutch Creek Road, ripping large chunks of 3 inch thick asphalt from a section of roadway and depositing large pieces up to 30 yards away, with smaller chunks of pavement found a quarter of a mile downstream. Just east of State Route 135, tremendous tree damage began. At this point, the tornado widened to around 200 yards. As the tornado crossed Trainer Lane and Route 335 towards Robbs Lane, widespread tree and structural damage indicated EF-2 to EF-3 damage. At this point, the damage path began to widen to one third of a mile.
After crossing Highway 60 just south of New Pekin, tremendous structural damage was surveyed. A large well-constructed factory building was cleared to its foundation slab with numerous anchoring bolts bent and stripped. Debris from this building was observed up to three quarters of a mile downstream. Large power poles were snapped. Another metal out building on the edge of the circulation had sheeting pulled off, apparently from the force of inbound winds towards the circulation. In this area 5 people were killed in a mobile home. Damage suggested an EF-4 tornado with a width of three to four tenths of a mile and estimated winds of 170 mph.
The tornado then traveled along the border between Washington and Crawford counties where it caused widespread destruction southeast of Hurst and along East Daisy Hill Road in the county. Here, a well constructed one story brick home at the top of a ridge was completely destroyed with no wall left standing. Witnesses described the funnel as a black wall. A heavy semi trailer cab was blown from this house and landed near another destroyed brick home. Damage to these homes suggested EF-4 winds of 170 mph. Near the intersection of East Daisy Hill and Williams Knob Roads, a home and two anchored double wide trailers were destroyed. A car was lifted and fell 100 yards away from its original driveway. The width of the damage path along the county line was up to one half mile, although the concentrated damage path was much more narrow. Overall, the twister traveled 17 miles in Washington county, felling thousands of trees in addition to destroying scores of buildings.
Wider weather episode
A surface Low over Missouri early in the afternoon of March 2nd strengthened to below 990mb as it moved north into Michigan by the evening hours. Around dawn, a warm front moved north of the Ohio River, accompanied by scattered elevated thunderstorms that produced small hail. During the early afternoon, temperatures rose into the lower 70s across southern Indiana. the combination of extreme wind shear and CAPE near 2000 Joules/kg brought several long lived supercells to the state near the Ohio River. These storms produced baseball-sized hail and several tornadoes, including a violent long-tracker, to southern Indiana. The tornadoes across the area were a part of a well forecast regional outbreak that affected the entire Lower Ohio and Tennessee Valleys. Overall, more than 80 tornadoes caused millions of dollars of damage and took several dozen lives.
For southern Indiana, March 2nd became the worst tornado outbreak since June 2nd, 1990.
View location on OpenStreetMap → (38.4316, -86.1893)
Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 359896. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.