EF4 Tornado — Jefferson, Indiana

2012-03-02 · near Chelsea, Jefferson, Indiana

Event narrative

The tornado entered Jefferson County as an EF-4 with a damage width of one-third of a mile. Several mobile homes were destroyed along and just north of State Highway 362 near the three-county intersection with Clark and Scott Counties. The tornado severely damaged several frame houses here, extensively damaged many power poles and power lines, and felled many trees.

After snapping trees and power poles along County Road 850, the tornado did a tremendous amount of damage around 2 miles south of Chelsea near the intersection of State Highway 62 and Swan Road. Here, several well built brick homes were destroyed. The homes had anchor bolts attached to steel plates and a concrete foundation. One home was lifted and slide 65 yards off its foundation while still remaining essentially intact. Another home was demolished and thrown several hundred yards downwind. Three fatalities occurred at this location. Two vehicles from the garage of this home were tossed for several dozen yards. A third well-built brick home had its roof lifted and thrown over 300 yards, and an above-ground pool filled with water was missing. Wind speeds were estimated at around 170 mph with a damage width of one quarter of a mile.

Through the rest of Jefferson county, the tornado did extensive damage to forests as it tracked to the north of Paynesville and south of Lee Bottom. The damage path narrowed to 200 yards before exiting Jefferson County and moving over the Ohio River.

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 → (38.6096, -85.5700)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 359915. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.