Tornadoes · United States · Kentucky · 1998
F1 tornado, Powderly to Beechmont, Kentucky, June 10, 1998
From Powderly to Beechmont, this F1 tornado ran 7.5 miles across Muhlenberg County on June 10, 1998, touching down at 5:12 PM CDT and reaching 50 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $100,000 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 mphthis tornado
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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
- F1
- Date
- June 10, 1998
- Touchdown
- 5:12 PM CDT (22:12 UTC)
- Path length
- 7.5 miles (12.1 km)
- Path width
- 50 yards (46 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $100,000
- County
- Muhlenberg County
- Touchdown point
- 37.250, -87.170
- Lift-off point
- 37.180, -87.030
- Record number
- 507
What the Weather Service recorded
A rotating thunderstorm tracked from near the Hopkins County line at Bremen southeast across most of the county. A funnel cloud associated with this storm touched down in the Central City/Powderly area and lifted near Beechmont. The main effect of this storm was downed trees and limbs. About a half dozen buildings were damaged by falling trees or limbs. A garage collapsed in Powderly. Several vehicles were damaged, including two that were blown off the road. An estimate of the number of trees down ranged between 50 and 100. No injuries were reported.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The forecast that day
The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 11:00 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), 12:00Z
10.2 hours before the tornado, 129 km from the path. June 10, 1998.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 3323 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -38 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 2004 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 782 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 39 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 26 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 101 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 96 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 1.6
- Supercell composite
- 8.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.6 K/km
Nashville Metro, TN (KBNA), 00:00Z
1.8 hours after it, 129 km from the path. June 11, 1998.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 1331 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -11 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 1307 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 618 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 47 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 18 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 145 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 143 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.8
- Supercell composite
- 4.9
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.8 K/km
The surface observations
Owensboro/Daviess (OWB), 59 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (kt) | Pressure (mb) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 00:00 UTC |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 1998 tornado in KentuckyEvery tornado in Kentucky since 1950Warnings in force in Kentucky nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of June 10, 1998
9 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 10 | 11:45 AM EDT | F0 | Florence, SC | 2.0 | 30 | $10,000 | ||
| June 10 | 11:55 AM EDT | F1 | Williamsburg, SC | 20.0 | 30 | $70,000 | ||
| June 10 | 3:15 PM CDT | F0 | Logan, ND | 0.2 | 30 | |||
| June 10 | 3:00 PM MDT | F0 | Bear Lake, ID | 0.1 | 30 | $20,000 | ||
| June 10 | 5:28 PM CDT | F0 | Miner, SD | 0.1 | 50 | |||
| June 10 | 7:30 PM CDT | F0 | Sargent, ND | 0.2 | 30 | |||
| June 10 | 8:05 PM CDT | F0 | Lyon, KS | 0.1 | 30 | |||
| June 10 | 9:34 PM EDT | F0 | Rockcastle, KY | 0.1 | 30 | |||
| June 10 | 8:55 PM CDT | F0 | Barnes, ND | 0.2 | 30 |
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.