These are the top 10 severe weather outbreaks in our forecast area back to the earliest records:
1. October 18, 1996
A QLCS with three embedded supercells produced several intense microbursts & macrobursts. 10 homes were heavily damaged near Newport. 5 homes were damaged near New Market & Mace in Montgomery County. One home was moved 1/2 foot off its foundation& structural damage occurred to a factory. Wind damage was reported in Crawfordsville to near Manson in Clinton County from a narrow swath of straight-line winds north of the microburst & macroburst.
A macroburst occurred near Logansport & injured 3 people via flying debris driven by an estimated 90 mph wind gust. Several homes& businesses were damaged in Logansport & the roof was blown off a church. The worst damage was around the church. There, wind gust likely peaked at 95 mph. It would take such a gust to totally remove the roof from the church.
No hail or tornadoes were produced. Less than two weeks later, another damaging severe outbreak would strike.
2. October 7, 1955
Around midnight, squall line blasted into area. Torrential rainfall of 1.60” fell in one hour at the Purdue Airport with an eventual total of 2.56”. The Purdue Agronomy greenhouses had windows blown out, resulting in $90,000 in damage (inflation-adjusted). Many trees, tree limbs & powerlines were blown down in West Lafayette. A mobile home north of town was flipped & destroyed. Of the occupants, two children were injured. For that kind of damage, winds would need to be 86-110 mph. Homecoming displays were damaged by the severe t’storm just two days before the Wisconsin-Purdue homecoming game match-up. Outside of the viewing area, An F1 tornado was confirmed in Wells County, Indiana, while 3 F1 tornadoes were confirmed in the St. Louis area (2 people were injured). An F2 was confirmed between Mattoon & Effingham, in eastern Illinois.
3. October 29, 1996
A QLCS with small LEWPs within it passed through the WLFI viewing area 7:50-10 p.m. on October 29, 1996.
Widespread straight-line wind damage was reported countywide in Newton, Jasper, Pulaski, Fulton, Benton, White, Fountain & Tipton counties with damage in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Numerous trees, tree limbs, powerlines & power poles were downed by the winds & literally hundreds of farm buildings sustained damage area-wide.
A home’s roof was heavily damaged in Crawfordsville, trees fell atop a camper at Concord (Tippecanoe County), hundreds of trees were snapped or uprooted at Newtown. Rensselaer, Monticello, Rochester, Crawfordsville, Russiaville, Lebanon & Windfall all reported significant damage to the communities” trees with numerous homes reporting roof damage. Grain augers were overturned by the winds at Lebanon.
4. October 23, 1856
