SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- The National Weather Service confirmed a tornado came through northern St. Joseph County early Saturday morning. An EF-0, meaning a weak tornado, but a tornado, nonetheless.
That’s the blue line on your screen, combined with time stamps, showing when the tornado dropped and lifted, a two-minute tornado that traveled 1.28 miles, with highest estimated winds close to 80 miles an hour.
The damage survey results did take a little while for the NWS to release, most of which may have to do with determining the length of the tornado.
The NWS sent out a message on Sunday about searching for damage in Michigan, however, there likely wasn’t enough consolidated damage in the Bertrand area right across the state line to be considered the aftermath of a tornado.
Remember that tornadoes are rated by the damage they leave behind. Tornado surveys have 28 damage indicators that they can pull from, with different levels in those 28 indicating potential windspeed.
Most of the damage in this instance was soft-wood tree damage, uprooting, and branches snapped off, but there was some structural damage. A home that had some shingle damage not caused by a tree.
All of these factors, combined with trees in a convergent pattern, meaning toward the area of rotation, made the NWS determine that this was indeed a tornado.
While there wasn’t damage to most houses thanks to the tornado itself, most damage done to residences in this area was done by trees and branches torn down by the tornado, so even with a weaker tornado like this EF-0, as well as any severe weather scenario, it is always safer to be in your safe spot than not.
Michiana has been battered with round after round of storms, with five confirmed tornadoes so far in 2026, including the one that hit St. Joseph County early Saturday morning.
In the seven full weeks since the beginning of March, Michiana has seen a Severe Thunderstorm Warning in every week but one, and a tornado warning through five of the weeks.
Since meteorological spring started, it has been an active one. Now the big question is: Is there any reason why we have been seeing waves after waves of storms?
Most of our weather is driven by what's happening in the upper atmosphere and we have seen a fairly stubborn high-pressure system just off to our south. High pressure systems funnel air in a clockwise fashion, so moist air has been bypassing areas like southern Indiana and Kentucky and been heading directly towards the Great Lakes region.
This atmospheric river has been pointing our way recently, and has been moving a lot slower than normal, allowing storm-making systems to continue tracking into our area. Hopefully we start to see a little pause in the storms as we get into summer and our pattern changes, but of course we will keep you updated on air, online, and on the ABC57 weather app.