F3 tornado, Blue Grass Lex Arpt, Kentucky, May 27, 2004

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 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 mphthis tornado

   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.

Rating

F3

Date

May 27, 2004

Touchdown

10:15 PM EDT (02:15 UTC)

Path length

3.0 miles (4.8 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

6

Property damage

$7.5 million

County

Fayette County

Touchdown point

38.080, -84.530

Lift-off point

38.080, -84.500

Record number

972

The tornado first touched down just east of Masterson Station Park on the subdivision road of Buck Lane. It continued east through the subdivision, causing F2 damage. The tornado then crossed an open field and creek, entering another subdivision. It appeared that the tornado reached its maximum F3 intensity in this section of the path. The tornado was on the ground intermittently as it moved to the east northeast. It struck a single house on State Road 1978, doing F2 damage. It crossed Georgetown Road and struck another subdivision near Citation Boulevard, doing F1 to F2 damage. It continued for a short distance into a field, and then lifted. There was straight line wind damage to the south of the tornado path, and additional straight line wind damage to the east after the tornado lifted. The tornado damaged 15 homes to some degree, and at least 50 home received moderate to severe damage. The hardest hit area was the Masterson Station subdivision.

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

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.

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 Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Moderate Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 01:00 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 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.

Lexington/Bluegrass (LEX), 9 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Jackson,KY radar (KJKL), 119 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 02:13 UTC.

Open the radar archive at this moment, over the track

Reflectivity and velocity, decoded from the Level II archive in the browser. Volumes take a few seconds to open the first time.

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

The live radar over the trackEvery 2004 tornado in KentuckyEvery tornado in Kentucky since 1950Warnings in force in Kentucky nowThe forecast where you are

27 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

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.

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.