EF4 tornado in Clark County, Indiana

This is a continuation of the violent long tracked tornado that began just south of Fredricksburg moved into Clark county as an EF-4 with a path width of one-third of a mile.

On Dan Gray Road, many well-constructed homes were leveled. The tornado narrowed to a path width of one-quarter of a mile and decreased in intensity as it crossed Pixley Knob Road. Farther east, the twister destroyed two double-wide modular homes on Speith Road, killing one resident who had moments earlier been videotaping the tornado, and had taken shelter in the interior hallway of the home. Another family residence on the west side of the road was severely damaged, reflecting 150 mph winds.

The tornado crossed Interstate 65, trapping several people within damaged cars and semis. This highway was closed for several hours. The tornado strengthened just east of exit 19 off the Interstate as it entered a heavily industrialized area. Buildings containing several businesses were destroyed. A home was destroyed with estimated EF-4 winds on the east side of North Fraucke Road. Several homes were seriously damaged on the north side of State Highway 160. The EF-4 tornado then moved through Henryville, severely damaging the south building of the Henryville Junior-Senior High School. The cafeteria was completely destroyed and six automobiles were piled up along the south side of the school. Two school buses in the south parking lot were ripped off their chassis, with one moved hundreds of feet east into a commercial business building across North Ferguson Street.

Extensive structural damage was surveyed on the east side of Henryville on North Front and Pennsylvania Streets. A high tension tower and other homes were damaged just west of Pine Drive. On Brownstown Road, many homes sustained EF-3 damage along the north side of the road. Several homes were destroyed along Henryville-Otisco Road, with the damage to one reflecting EF-4 winds. The tornado cycled near the intersect of Blackberry Trail and State Highway 3, with the original vortex narrowing rapidly into a rope-like funnel and ending as an EF-1 just as a new vortex immediately touched down just to the southwest of the original near Highway 3 and Mahan Road. This new twister damaged a church as an EF-1 and quickly intensified to an EF-3 as it severely damaged several homes on the south side of Marysville. A Civil Air Patrol Flight revealed extensive ground scouring across several fields east of Marysville all the way to the Scott Jefferson County Line. The scouring indicated a multiple vortex tornado and was confirmed by witnesses and photos. Several homes were severely damaged near and south of the intersection of Nabb-New Washington and Marysville-Nabb Roads. The tornado had 150 mph winds and a width of one third of a mile at this point.

The tornado intensified over open country east of the intersection of Kettle Bottom and State Highway 362 before crossing into Scott County as it moved north of Route 362.

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.