Severe Weather Climatology

For updated tornado track information, visit the Damage Assessment Toolkit. In the upper-right side of that website, you can select a date, or date range, and view the tornado tracks. To find information on other severe weather events, visit the NCEI Storm Events Database. There, in the lower left, you can select a state. On the page that follows, you can search by date, county, and weather event.

This page will provide an overview of severe weather climatology for the Northern Indiana (IWX) CWA since 1980. The basis for this study was based on the need to update a paper published in 1999 after the Northern Indiana forecast office had just opened. This paper explored severe weather history and trends for the period of 1950-1997. An electronic version of this technical publication (except for the graphs and tables) can be found by clicking the following link: SEVERE WEATHER CLIMATOLOGY FOR THE NEW NWSO NORTHERN INDIANA COUNTY WARNING AREA. An updated climatology paper is in the editing stages and a link will be posted as soon as it is available.

This updated climatology looks at severe weather for the IWX CWA from 1980 to 2010. The 31 year period will be used to look at trends and statistics in the more modern era of storm data collection and archiving. Since the modernization of the National Weather Service (NWS) in the late 1980s and early 1990s, storm data entry has evolved and become more standardized than in years prior. Advances in technology have also led to an increase of storm reporting. The combination of these factors has led to an increase in severe weather reports to the NWS. Therefore, it is necessary to get an updated picture of severe weather climatology in the modern reporting era. The weather variables in this climatology are tornadoes, severe winds (58 mph or greater), severe hail (1" in diameter or larger), flooding, and lightning. Each one of these weather elements was looked at in detail to determine favorable times of occurence by month and time and day.

Event Totals

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Storm Reports 1980-2010	Storm Reports Piechart	Weather Related Fatalities

I. Tornadoes

For more detailed historical information and maps of tornado tracks for each year and county, please visit our IWX Tornado Tracks webpage.

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Tornado Paths	Tornadoes per County	Tornadoes per County bar graph


Tornado Strength by County	Tornado Strength by Month	Tornado Strength by Season


Tornado Frequency by Month	Tornado Frequency by Hour

II. Severe Winds

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Wind Reports plot	Wind Reports per County	Wind Reports per County bar graph


Wind Frequency by Month	Wind Frequency by Hour

III. Severe Hail

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Hail Reports plot	Hail Reports per County	Hail Reports per County bar graph


Hail Frequency by Month	Hail Frequency by Hour

IV. Flooding

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Flood Events per County	Flood Events per County bar graph

Severe Thunderstorms in the East Sunday; Excessive Heat Lingers in the Southern U.S. and Returning to California