Tornadoes · United States · Kentucky · 1989
F2 tornado, Simpson County, Kentucky, May 22, 1989
This F2 tornado ran 5.0 miles across Simpson County on May 22, 1989, touching down at 7:50 PM CDT and reaching 50 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $500,000 to $5 million of property damage.
The rating scale
Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.
F040 to 72 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
F173 to 112 mph
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
F2113 to 157 mphthis tornado
Considerable damage. Roofs torn off well-built houses, frame homes shifted on their foundations, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, cars lifted off the ground.
F3158 to 206 mph
Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.
F4207 to 260 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
F5261 to 318 mph
Incredible damage. Strong frame houses swept off their foundations, car-sized missiles thrown more than 100 meters, steel-reinforced concrete badly damaged, high-rise buildings deformed.
Unrated
The survey recorded a tornado but could not put a number on it, most often because it crossed open country and damaged nothing a rating can be read from.
The record
- Rating
- F2
- Date
- May 22, 1989
- Touchdown
- 7:50 PM CDT (00:50 UTC)
- Path length
- 5.0 miles (8.0 km)
- Path width
- 50 yards (46 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $500,000 to $5 million
- County
- Simpson County
- Touchdown point
- 36.720, -86.570
- Lift-off point
- 36.780, -86.500
- Record number
- 322
The warnings
No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 00:07 UTC | 00:45 UTC | Tornado Warning | LMK |
| 00:56 UTC | 01:30 UTC | Tornado Warning | LMK |
Every warning and watch covering the touchdown point that day, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service products. Lead time is measured from the issue of the warning in force to the touchdown time in the database, both of which were recorded to the minute by different people.
The forecast that day
The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 06:36 UTC.
SPC's Day 1 convective outlook as it stood when the tornado began, read at the touchdown point. The same archive is on the radar archive.
The air that afternoon
The radiosonde launches on either side of the tornado, from the nearest station that was launching then, drawn and analyzed the way Storm Lab does: the same diagram, the same parcel and shear definitions SPC's mesoanalysis uses.
Nashville Metro, TN (KBNA), 00:00Z
0.8 hours before the tornado, 69 km from the path. May 23, 1989.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 493 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -28 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 736 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1270 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 40 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 23 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 171 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 245 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.4
- Supercell composite
- 3.7
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 7.2 K/km
Nashville Metro, TN (KBNA), 12:00Z
11.2 hours after it, 69 km from the path. May 23, 1989.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -10606 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 9 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 715 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 44 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 17 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 73 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 74 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.5 K/km
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 1989 tornado in KentuckyEvery tornado in Kentucky since 1950Warnings in force in Kentucky nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of May 22, 1989
6 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 22 | 1:00 AM CDT | F2 | Greene, MO | 1.0 | 30 | $50,000 to $500,000 | ||
| May 22 | 6:25 PM CDT | F1 | Simpson, KY | 3.0 | 40 | 1 | $50,000 to $500,000 | |
| May 22 | 8:26 PM CDT | F0 | Adams, NE | 0.2 | 40 | $50 to $500 | ||
| May 22 | 8:37 PM CDT | F2 | Giles, TN | 9.0 | 100 | 1 | 2 | $50,000 to $500,000 |
| May 22 | 9:12 PM CDT | F1 | Adams, NE | 0.2 | 30 | $5,000 to $50,000 | ||
| May 22 | 9:15 PM CDT | F0 | Monroe, KY | 1.0 | 50 | $50,000 to $500,000 |
What this means
Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. Tornado counts rise through the record as reporting improved, so a year in the 1950s is not comparable with one today except for the strongest tornadoes, which were always noticed.
Sources
NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.