Tornado Alley

Anyone who knows me knows I love weather. The past couple of weeks have been very active in Indiana, with many tornadoes. On the not-so-good Good Friday, Crawfordsville was hit by a small tornado (most likely a funnel cloud) that later touched down near Nucor Steel north of Ladoga. A home was lost. The damage was very localized. I went down today to look since it is my home, and I know it well. I took some photos, but I could not bring myself to take a photo of the lost home and the debris spread out over the 1/2 mile of field. They were out sifting through the pieces of their home to find their precious belongings. Wabash College suffered some damage (one of the buildings seen in the photo below), and for those of you who know the movie "Hoosiers," the barn was destroyed by the young twister outside of New Richmond.

I had my weather radio with me today, and went to Ladoga to meet up with the parents. Mom rode with me to come back home to Mulberry, but we decided to go look at some of the damage. After looking at the southern part of the county, we ventured to Wabash, then to New Richmond. I took the back roads, went west for a while and saw something odd in the clouds. I called dad, and he told me there was a Tstorm warning for N Montgomery County. I kept watching...looking at what I felt was a rotating wall cloud. Then...a little funnel dropped...and spun around for a couple minutes, then went back into the cloud. I sat there, mom was not happy, and then we slowly went north, staying south of the wall cloud, until it went east of the road we were on. It moved on, and I looked to my west, and saw a wall of water...which turned into a wall of ice, lasting five minutes, and nickle size in diameter. I parked in a driveway with the hail pounding on me, and drove up to the people's garage when the wind began to pick up. Someone living there ran out to put his car up (and ran into the garage which was entertaining). He saw us, and ran back in. A few minutes later, hail stopped, he came back out, and we talked. He said they had a basement and we could stay till it cleared. So very nice of him. Thank you nice New Richmond person.

We then left after it stopped, went further west, then back north. Moved back east and ran into another wall of rain. We stopped 3 times cause I could not see to drive. We finally go to our county road off of I65 near Frankfort, and the downpour stopped. Not a drop. We were under the core. Dead under it. Not a breeze. Not a drop of rain. Just clouds moving in a circle. And it was green. Mom again...not happy. We got out of there and headed north, and five miles later, we were home. As soon as I got in the door, my weather radio went off for a doppler indicated tornado just west of Frankfort. I got the radar sweep soon after I got home. But you can clearly see the traditional signature of a tornado producing super cell with the core just over Frankfort. That was my wall cloud! Soon after we got home, grandpa called to tell us that a family member reported damage to hog barns near Linden. How severe, I do not know.

Anyways, that is my excitement. I am posting some pictures on here for you guys to look at, critique, print and frame, whatever. Prayers out to the victims of the storms.