I believe the Indianapolis office had to seek shelter during the April 14 2006 supercell I was chasing as it passed over the office. I think someone from that office is on that board, maybe they can chime in?
You have an excellent memory. As early as an hour prior to the storm's impact on our office, we had contacted WFO Louisville, since Northern Indiana, our primary backup office, was also dealing with extensive severe weather. We asked them to be ready in the event that the mesocyclone continued to track towards our building. As soon as the meso was 5 minutes or so out, we passed off warning operations to them and took shelter. Shortly thereafter, at 10:02 pm EDT, a wind gust to 85 mph occurred at the Indianapolis ASOS, which I believe is around 1.8 miles north of the office. Winds were similarly strong here at the office itself.
Interestingly, we observed what could have been a funnel cloud pass just north of our building just prior to the wind gusts. Being that it was just prior to 10 pm EDT, all we could tell with any observational certainty was that a low hanging cloud moved just north of us, and the trees behind our building were bending toward it in the wind.
Fortunately for us, if memory serves me correctly, rotation was weakening and broadening, as the storm was undergoing a transition in convective mode at this point, and shortly thereafter became an impressive bow echo, which continued to produce wind damage as it raced southward through the southeastern portion of our county warning area.
This particular supercell is the most impressive one I have ever witnessed in Indiana, even though, according to our damage surveys, no evidence of a tornado was found. Significant damage was noted along its path, but this was due to extremely strong rear flank downdraft winds sampled by our 88D, at one point maxing out the displayable velocities over Fountain and Montgomery counties (over 120 knots), a mere few thousand feet AGL.
This was the second round of severe storms for the Indianapolis metropolitan area that evening, coming mere hours after a massive supercell dropped huge hail on much of the city, especially the northern and eastern portions. I believe that evening's event was the single most expensive weather disaster of the year in the United States.
