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F1 tornado in Vigo County, Indiana

Tornado February 16, 2006 · Vigo County, Indiana

Rating

4.2 mi

Path length

100 yd

Path width

$1.5M

Damage as recorded

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The path drawn at its surveyed width of 100 yards (0.06 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What F1 means. This tornado was rated on Fujita’s original scale, used until 2007. F1 meant moderate damage: roofs badly stripped, mobile homes pushed off foundations or overturned, windows broken; the scale paired it with winds of 73–112 mph, figures later judged too high, especially toward the top of the scale, and revised downward in the Enhanced Fujita scale. Ratings then, as now, came from the damage.

What the National Weather Service wrote

A tornado touched down just north of Interstate 70, and west of the Margaret Avenue and Fruitridge Avenue intersection, and traveled northeastward. Along its path, the tornado severely damaged Union Christian Church at State Road 46 and Hulman Drive, and at least 18 buildings and 6 planes at the Terre Haute International Airport, including the Ivy Tech State College building on the airport campus, where three people were trapped as emergency crews waited for power to be shut off before removing them from the building.A preliminary search indicated that this was the first tornado in Vigo county in just over thirteen years, and the first February tornado in Indiana in fourteen years and one day.

The wider storm

A large squall line containing several bowing segments moved through central Indiana on the evening of 16 February 2006. What was likely an embedded supercell structure produced an F1 tornado near Terre Haute in Vigo County, with widespread straight line wind damage occurring elsewhere along the line as it moved from west to east. The Vigo County tornado was the first February tornado in Indiana in almost exactly fourteen years.

Began near (huf)hulman Fld Tere (39.4333, -87.3667).

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 5486570. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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