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EF2 Tornado — Greene, Indiana

2019-06-15 · near Ridgeport, Greene, Indiana

$250K

Property damage

3.5 mi

Path length

400 yds

Path width

Event narrative

The EF-2 rated tornado, with max wind speeds of 130 mph, started west of North Crowe Road causing significant damage to a newly built building on Crowe Road. The owner verified it was well built and in very good shape. The track continued across State Road 54 and left a wide swath of tree damage with a resident stating over 100 acres of trees were snapped. The storm crossed State Road 43 and dissipated in a field to the east.

Wider weather episode

A warm front brought severe storms, tornadoes, and heavy rain on June 15th. A significant tornado outbreak that was the largest since November 17, 2013 occurred during the evening of Saturday, June 15th. Seven tornadoes occurred in central Indiana with 3 additional tornadoes across portions of eastern Indiana.

This is what the environment showed. A weak shortwave trough was moving through central Indiana during the time of the severe weather. This was a high shear, low CAPE environment initially which kept convection to a minimum until around 5 PM when just enough CAPE was there to rapidly increase storm coverage and severity. LCL heights were around 750m at the time. The shear profile was ideal for creating numerous rotating thunderstorms. With 0-1km Shear over 30 knots and Storm Relative Helicity in excess of 300 m^2/s^2, the low level environment was primed for tornadoes. The 0-6km shear of 40-50 knots was sufficient for rotating supercells. The significant tornado parameter was not quite as impressive and was kept fairly low due to the low CAPE environment. Had CAPE values been closer to 2000-3000 J/kg, a much more intense outbreak would have occurred. In addition to the tornado threat, Precipitable Water values were in excess of 1.5 inches which also lead to significant flash flooding as the evening progressed.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (39.0456, -86.7965)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 837746. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.