Tornadoes · United States · Kentucky · 2000

F1 tornado, Lebanon, Kentucky, November 9, 2000

This F1 tornado ran 0.3 miles across Marion County on November 9, 2000, touching down at 2:53 PM EST and reaching 70 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.

  1. F040 to 72 mph

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

  2. F173 to 112 mphthis tornado

    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
F1
Date
November 9, 2000
Touchdown
2:53 PM EST (19:53 UTC)
Path length
0.3 miles (0.5 km)
Path width
70 yards (64 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$100,000
County
Marion County
Touchdown point
37.550, -85.220
Lift-off point
37.550, -85.220
Record number
250

What the Weather Service recorded

Numerous trees and power lines were reported down in most every county mentioned. Most of the property damage was in the form of roof damage, or minor damage caused by flying debris. Besides the tornadoes reported, there was some extensive property damage due to straight line winds, though. One mobile home was destroyed and two were damaged by straight line winds near Mt. Sherman in Larue County. A roof was caved in at a lumber company in Bowling Green in Warren County. In Liberty in Casey County, part of the roof of a concrete company was blown off. Georgetown in Scott county had extensive damage; an 80 foot radio tower was blown over on to a house, propane tanks and cars were overturned, and power poles were snapped.

A fairly new barn was blown down. In the vicinity, the roof of a garage was collapsed, and the garage door was wrapped around the back of the car inside. Three mobile homes were damaged and one was demolished.

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

The warnings

12 minutes of warning. NWS LMK issued a tornado warning for this county at 19:41 UTC, 12 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 20:15 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
19:26 UTC20:15 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningLMK
19:41 UTC20:15 UTCTornado WarningLMK

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 16:56 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

4.1 hours after it, 200 km from the path. November 10, 2000.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Nashville Metro, TN at 00:00Z on 2000-11-10Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 0 joules per kilogram, CIN -82121, lifted condensation level 725 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCL10008507005003002001001 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, Nashville Metro, TN at 00:00Z on 2000-11-10The 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 54 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 62 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
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-82121 J/kg
Surface CAPE
52 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
725 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
62 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
21 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
54 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
82 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
4.8 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Capital City Airport/Frankfort (FFT), 76 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
18:53 UTC7060150° 13 kt995.3
19:53 UTC7061170° 12 kt994.6
20:28 UTC69.860.8150° 10 kt17993.6TS
20:39 UTC66.260.8220° 39 kt47995.6TSRA SQ
20:42 UTC5957.2270° 33 kt48995.9+TSRA FG SQ
20:53 UTC5352260° 16 kt38997TSRA BR
20:58 UTC53.651.8260° 22 kt28997.6TSRA BR
21:14 UTC53.650280° 16 kt27996.6+RA BR
21:53 UTC5350230° 13 kt18999

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2000 tornado in KentuckyEvery tornado in Kentucky since 1950Warnings in force in Kentucky nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of November 9, 2000

8 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
November 91:50 AM CSTF0Lamar, MS0.550$3,000
November 97:19 AM CSTF1Pike, AL1.970$100,000
November 91:06 PM CSTF1Hart, KY2.070$70,000
November 91:15 PM CSTF1Hart, KY2.070$30,000
November 91:40 PM CSTF1Cumberland, KY2.070$150,000
November 92:55 PM ESTF1Washington, KY2.070$20,000
November 93:10 PM ESTF1Washington, KY1.5701$10,000
November 93:34 PM ESTF1Woodford, KY0.870$3,000

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.