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EF3 tornado in Howard County, Indiana

Tornado August 24, 2016 · Howard County, Indiana

EF3
Rating
8.6 mi
Path length
300 yd
Path width
20
Injuries
$10.0M
Damage as recorded
EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 300 yards (0.17 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF3 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF3 is severe damage: whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, consistent with estimated gusts of 136–165 mph. The rating comes from a survey of the worst damage after the storm, not from a wind measurement, so it says as much about what the tornado hit as about how strong it was.

What the National Weather Service wrote

This EF-3 tornado, with maximum wind speeds of 152 mph, caused significant structural damage to homes and businesses across the south side of Kokomo. A Starbucks building was destroyed near Markland Mall. According to WTHR13, at least 80 homes were destroyed. Out of the 1,000 total homes damaged, about 170 of them sustained major damage. Much of the Park Place Apartments were damaged or destroyed. Numerous trees were downed as well.

The wider storm

Multiple supercell thunderstorms produced a total of 7 tornadoes across central Indiana on August 24th. Significant damage occurred in Kokomo, where 20 people suffered injuries. There were no fatalities from this event. The 7 tornadoes ratings were: 1 EF-3, 1 EF-2, 2 EF-1s and 3 EF-0s.

Four additional tornadoes were reported in northern Indiana.

Began near Kokomo Ruzicka Arpt (40.4613, -86.1884).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

6 more tornadoes the National Weather Service filed under this storm episode.

EF2 Montgomery CountyEF1 Howard CountyEF1 Carroll CountyEF0 Marion CountyEF0 Howard CountyEF0 Howard County

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 658562. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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