EF4 Tornado — Scott, Indiana

2012-03-02 · near Nabb, Scott, Indiana

Event narrative

After exiting Clark County as an EF-4, this one-third mile wide tornado tracked for only six tenths of a mile across extreme southeastern Scott County before entering Jefferson County between the eastern endpoint of County Road 550 South and State Route 362.

Despite its limited distance in Scott County, however, the tornado proved to be deadly, taking the life of a 72 year old man who was in his frame home residence on State Route 362 east of Kelly Bottom Road, where two other wood frame homes were also severely damaged and 5 mobile homes completely destroyed. This damage proved consistent with 170 mph winds.

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 → (38.6061, -85.5808)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 359916. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.