Recap of the June 23rd South Bend Tornadoes

Warning: tornado pictures are shown in this post!



A city of over 100,000 residents in north-central Indiana, South Bend was the unlucky yet lucky (I'll explain the lucky part soon) site for two peculiar tornadoes that seemingly came out of nowhere. Even WNDU Channel 16's renowned Chief Meteorologist, Mike Hoffman, was quite surprised by the tornadoes' sudden and rare formation. The image of the first tornado was captured from a Facebook video by Tricia Sloma, a popular — and apparently brave — news anchor for WNDU's morning news. This EF 0 tornado touched down near Roosevelt Road after 8:30 PM Eastern Time. Tricia's photo illustrates how relatively minuscule this tornado was; its widest path on the ground was 10 yards, highest winds were 65 to 70 miles per hour, and the tornado path was a half mile (0.5 miles) in length. Barn doors and tree branches were damaged.

First Tornado


Second Tornado


In comparison to the first tornado, the second tornado (EF 2 strength) was a mighty beast aiming to devour the south side of South Bend! Branches from large trees fell down, the Irish Hills apartment complex experienced some aesthetic damage, electricity went out for hundreds of homes and businesses, and a residential screened building and the Growing Kids daycare facility were partially destroyed. Even though the CVS Pharmacy is across the street from Growing Kids, its facility was virtually unspared — with a possible power outage being a temporary inconvenience. There is video footage available of tornadic winds swirling across a portion of U.S. Highway 20! Fortunately, drivers on the two-lane restricted highway (under construction) knew the tornado was coming, giving room for the tornado to cross the highway without incident.

All in all, South Bend was lucky on June 23rd. Despite a rather massive tornado hovering over the south side, miraculously no one was killed or seriously hurt. This tornado developed at 8:38 PM Eastern Time, ran for about 2 miles and up to 200 yards wide, and brought winds of 115 to 125 mph. Growing Kids will certainly have to rebuild to get their service up and running, but thank goodness the tornado occurred on a Sunday — when no kids or employees were present at that site. Even the custodian/janitor was not there! While this tornado was merciful, it was a strange one: its cloud height was less than 18,000 feet, and there was no lightning or thunder associated with it! The footage of the second tornado above and below is credited to Ashlee Sassaman and Tomi Vicen, respectively. More information about this tornadic event is provided by the National Weather Service of Northern Indiana (↗).