EF3 Tornado — Tippecanoe, Indiana

2013-11-17 · near North Crane, Tippecanoe, Indiana

Event narrative

At 1454EST, this EF-3 tornado touched down 5 miles south-southeast of Lafayette. This EF-3 tornado impacted the Subaru and Voest Alpine plants southeast of Lafayette. Both sustained significant damage consistent with a low end EF-3 rating. Property and tree damage then continued northeast to the north of Dayton. The tornado crossed through the far northwest corner of Clinton County causing mainly tree damage. Then, the tornado moved into southwest Carroll county. A hog farm sustained damage to several outbuildings in extreme southwest Carroll County. Additional damage was found in Cutler. Much of the damage across Carroll County ranged between EF-0 and EF-1. This tornado crossed into Cass County near State Route 18 at 1517EST, continuing for nearly an additional 10 miles. The total path length including Cass County is 39 miles. The tornado lifted 4 miles southwest of Grissom Air Reserve Base at 1527EST.

Wider weather episode

A large outbreak of severe weather took place on November 17, 2013. In Indiana alone there were 29 tornadoes, with dozens more in other states. In central Indiana the strongest tornado was rated an EF-3. There were 8 EF-2 tornadoes, 6 EF-1 tornadoes, and 1 EF-0 tornado in central Indiana. This number of tornadoes for the entire state is the largest outbreak for November in recorded history for Indiana, and the third largest outbreak in state history for any month (June 2, 1990 is first with 37 tornadoes, April 19, 2011 is second with 29 tornadoes).

A potent weather system moved into the Ohio Valley during the afternoon of November 17, 2013. The setup became ideal for severe weather, including multiple tornadoes. A strong jet stream was approaching central Indiana during the afternoon of November 17. An upper trough was approaching the area as well. Not far off the surface, strong winds were flowing north from the Gulf of Mexico. Speeds at 500 meters over Indiana at 3:00 PM were over 50 mph. This system's setup provided the area with plenty of instability for thunderstorms to form. The turning of the winds with height, set up by the approaching upper trough and winds ahead of the surface cold front, set the stage for the potential for tornadoes. The effective storm relative helicity values, by mid-afternoon,were 500 to 700 m2/s2 across central Indiana and were extremely high for November. As a result of this setup, numerous thunderstorms developed across Illinois and quickly became severe. These storms produced numerous tornadoes across Illinois. The strong winds aloft caused the storms to move quickly into Indiana, where additional tornadoes and severe thunderstorms developed.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (40.3462, -86.8342)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 485368. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.