Tornadoes confirmed in southern Indiana after early Monday morning storms
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — After a line of showers and storms produced severe weather across southern Indiana from Sunday night into Monday morning, the National Weather Service survey teams are still trying to get an exact tornado count with their survey teams. Right now, preliminarily we have at least 4 confirmed tornadoes, which could potentially be 5 depending on surveys today.
Tuesday evening, the NWS confirmed a tornado near Salem, IN with maximum winds of 90 mph.
Also on Tuesday, the NWS confirmed a tornado .5 miles north of Paoli. This tornado has a preliminary rating of an EF1 with maximum winds of 100 mph. They also confirmed an EF0 tornado 1.5 miles south of Paoli with maximum winds of 85 mph.
The question the National Weather Service is still trying to figure out is if a separate tornado remained on the ground from northern Dubois County all the way into Paoli. Tornado damage was observed in Dubois County just west of Hayesville in a preliminary report. The EF-1 tornado had maximum winds of 97 mph.
This Wednesday, the survey team continued to track the 20 mile path of suspected tornado between Haysville and Paoli. Due to the hard terrain and large area to cover, the team only got around halfway between the towns on the day. They are expected to continue to track the path of this tornado Thursday.
We also found separate tornado damage area near Paoli an EF-1 rating and maximum winds of 100 mph was observed. The exact time and track had not been released.
The statewide 2023 tornado count stands at 50 or 51 with the additional confirmations.
Several of those tornadoes came on the March 31-April 1 outbreak, which produced 23 tornadoes in the state.
Between 1991 and 2020, the state had an average of 25 tornadoes per year.
For comparison, 2022 only produced 15 tornadoes across Indiana.
Tornado records stretch back to 1950, and the most twisters in one single year stands at 72 back in 2011.
Survey teams will return to work in Dubois, Orange, and Washington counties this Thursday. They are expected to finish all surveys today, and hopefully come up with a tornado count number.