Lake Village tornado tops off tumultuous March

Left: View from Harrison Street and State Road 55 in Shelby after the March 31 storms. Right: A tree came down in a neighborhood in Demotte. (Photos courtesy of Tracy Cross and Sherri Akers)

The old saying goes “March comes in like a lion, and goes out like a lamb.”

Only this past March in the area, the lion never left. The lion would strike and then go back and hide, rearing it’s ugly head three times in the Calumet Region over the month.

The latest round of severe weather came on March 30 when a line of strong storms brought damaging straight line winds and another tornado to the area. The tornado was a confirmed EF-0 that started southwest of Lake Village in Newton County and tracked northeast of the town to just north of State Road 10.

The National Weather Service (NWS) reported “widespread damaging winds ranging from 70 to locally 90 mph impacted a wide area starting in eastern Lake County northeastward through central and northern Porter County in northwestern Indiana.” The NWS reported “snapped and uprooted trees, downed power lines and damage to farm buildings” in the path of the storm. Eyewitnesses from DeMotte and Shelby also reported trees down on properties or across roads.