F1 tornado, Clinton, Kentucky, May 29, 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 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.

Rating

F1

Date

May 29, 2004

Touchdown

8:30 PM CDT (01:30 UTC)

Path length

5.4 miles (8.7 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Hickman County

Touchdown point

36.600, -88.900

Lift-off point

36.670, -88.830

Record number

158

Strong rotation was observed within a thunderstorm for the duration of its path from Fulton County, east-northeast across Hickman and Graves Counties, to the Marshall/Calloway County line. A tornado tracked several miles across Hickman County. Several trees were down in southern Graves County, including two around Wingo and two others south of Mayfield. A funnel cloud was observed close to the ground by trained spotters at the Marshall/Calloway County line, just west of Highway 299.

A damage survey found numerous trees down along the tornado path. There were no known structures within the damage area. Peak winds based on tree damage were estimated near 80 MPH. The tornado tracked from about 4 miles southwest of the small community of Fulgham to 2 miles east of Fulgham.

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

20 minutes of warning. NWS PAH issued a tornado warning for this county at 01:10 UTC, 20 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 02:00 UTC.

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 General Thunderstorms Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 01:02 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.

The Paducah radar (KPAH), 49 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:32 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.

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

77 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 78 of them

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.