High Wind — Decatur, Indiana

2021-03-26 · Decatur, Indiana

Event narrative

A 49 mph wind gust was reported by an automated surface observations system in Millhousen. Widespread power outages across the county suggests that pockets of higher wind gusts occurred with over 1000 outages due to the strong gradient winds.

Wider weather episode

During the late evening hours of March 25th, a series of storms moved across south central Indiana. A warm front was situated along the Ohio River with plenty of lower and upper level shear, but a general lack of instability. As storms quickly raced to the north at 70-80 mph, they became elevated once going north of the warm front leading to isolated areas of large hail and large amounts of small hail. Hail size was likely larger than the 1.50 inch report, but generally moved over rural areas during the peak of the storm. Later that evening, a more surface based line moved across southeastern Indiana but had little to no impact due to a lack of instability. Strong gradient winds moved in after midnight as the surface low moved through with sporadic wind damage reported.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 939642. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.