Tornadoes · United States · Kentucky · 1997

F0 tornado, East Bernstadt, Kentucky, March 28, 1997

This F0 tornado ran 0.1 miles across Laurel County on March 28, 1997, touching down at 10:30 PM EST and reaching 20 yards wide. It killed nobody.

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.

  1. F040 to 72 mphthis tornado

    Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

  2. F173 to 112 mph

    Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

  3. F2113 to 157 mph

    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.

  4. 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.

  5. F4207 to 260 mph

    Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

  6. 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.

  7. 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
F0
Date
March 28, 1997
Touchdown
10:30 PM EST (03:30 UTC)
Path length
0.1 miles (0.2 km)
Path width
20 yards (18 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Laurel County
Touchdown point
37.200, -84.130
Lift-off point
37.200, -84.130
Record number
111

What the Weather Service recorded

A small tornado briefly touched down, and caused some minor tree damage.

From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.

The warnings

0 minutes of warning. NWS JKL issued a tornado warning for this county at 03:30 UTC, 0 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 04:30 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
03:09 UTC04:00 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningJKL
03:30 UTC04:30 UTCTornado WarningJKL

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 Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 05:53 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.

Cncnati-Daytn, OH (KILN), 00:00Z

3.5 hours before the tornado, 250 km from the path. March 29, 1997.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Cncnati-Daytn, OH at 00:00Z on 1997-03-29Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 275 joules per kilogram, CIN -85, lifted condensation level 623 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Cncnati-Daytn, OH at 00:00Z on 1997-03-29The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 282 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 61 knots.1939587897Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
275 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-85 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
623 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
61 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
29 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
282 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
290 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.9
0-3 km lapse rate
5.0 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Cncnati-Daytn, OH (KILN), 12:00Z

8.5 hours after it, 250 km from the path. March 29, 1997.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Cncnati-Daytn, OH at 12:00Z on 1997-03-29Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 81 joules per kilogram, CIN -8, lifted condensation level 536 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Cncnati-Daytn, OH at 12:00Z on 1997-03-29The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 33 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 22 knots.19395878Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
81 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-8 J/kg
Surface CAPE
546 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
536 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
22 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
21 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
33 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
60 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
6.9 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 1997 tornado in KentuckyEvery tornado in Kentucky since 1950Warnings in force in Kentucky nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of March 28, 1997

23 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
March 286:24 PM ESTF1Marion, IN0.173$750,000
March 286:45 PM ESTF1Hardin, KY7.0100$2.0 million
March 286:04 PM CSTF3Hart, KY9.01,200114$1.4 million
March 286:06 PM CSTF0Robertson, TN0.5200
March 287:15 PM ESTF0Nelson, KY0.550$50,000
March 287:22 PM ESTF3Larue, KY2.01,2001$3.0 million
March 286:25 PM CSTF2Green, KY3.0300$20,000
March 287:31 PM ESTF2Larue, KY5.0300$100,000
March 287:41 PM ESTF2Marion, KY3.0300
March 287:05 PM CSTF0McNairy, TN0.110$1,000
March 287:15 PM CSTF2Metcalfe, KY10.020016$3.0 million
March 287:15 PM CSTF3Adair, KY15.05007$1.0 million
March 288:40 PM ESTF1Casey, KY10.050$200,000
March 287:45 PM CSTF2Adair, KY1.0200
March 288:45 PM ESTF1Scott, IN1.0100
March 288:47 PM ESTF1Jefferson, IN9.0100$200,000
March 287:50 PM CSTF0Russell, KY10.050$1.0 million
March 288:17 PM CSTF0Hardin, TN0.110
March 289:17 PM CSTF1Smith, TN1.020$50,000
March 289:55 PM CSTF2Overton, TN5.94402$250,000
March 2810:28 PM CSTF0Hart, KY0.550$10,000
March 2810:38 PM CSTF0Coffee, TN0.520
March 2811:33 PM CSTF2Sequatchie, TN6.0440$100,000

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.