Two tornado watches were in effect Thursday night across Indiana, with the larger one stretching through 2 a.m. Friday over much of central and northern Indiana. Indianapolis and Marion County were left out, even as Boone County northwest of the city fell inside the watch area.
The National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center issued the later watch at 8:05 p.m. Thursday, covering parts of central Indiana, much of northern Indiana and 10 Illinois counties. In Indiana, that watch included cities such as Crawfordsville, Elkhart, Fort Wayne, Kokomo, Lafayette, Logansport, Marion and South Bend, and it covered counties including Adams, Allen, Blackford, Boone, Carroll, Cass, Clinton, DeKalb, Elkhart, Fountain, Fulton, Grant, Howard, La Porte, Marshall, Miami, Montgomery, Noble, Parke, Pulaski, St. Joseph, Tipton, Vermillion, Wabash, Warren, Wells, White and Whitley.
A separate watch went out earlier, at 1:55 p.m. Thursday, for Benton, Jasper, Lake, Newton and Porter counties, along with dozens of Illinois counties. That watch was set to expire at 10 p.m. EDT, or 9 p.m. CDT. Together, the alerts marked a long stretch of severe-weather concern that ran from the afternoon into the overnight hours.
News 8 said a big line of strong-to-severe storms was expected to move across central Indiana sometime between 10 p.m. Thursday and 2 a.m. Friday. The main threats were damaging wind gusts, possible spin-up tornadoes and hail, and heavy rain could lead to flooding again in some areas.
The gap in the watch area mattered. Residents in Indianapolis could look north and west and see Boone County under the alert, but the city and Marion County were not included in either watch. The line of storms could still shift as it moved through the state, but the only firm end point on the board Thursday night was 2 a.m. Friday for the larger watch. By sunrise, temperatures were expected to be mainly in the 60s.
