F0 tornado, Cedar Grove, Kentucky, May 30, 2004

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.

Rating

F0

Date

May 30, 2004

Touchdown

2:22 PM CDT (19:22 UTC)

Path length

0.5 miles (0.8 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Todd County

Touchdown point

36.900, -87.150

Lift-off point

36.920, -87.130

Record number

1032

A few supercell thunderstorms tracked across western Kentucky during the early afternoon. Each thunderstorm showed distinct rotation and produced at least one tornado. The first tornadic storm developed just west of Paducah, and continued northeast across Livingston and Crittenden Counties before weakening. This storm produced only one confirmed tornado, which was at West Paducah. A second thunderstorm developed strong rotation between Princeton and Madisonville, then moved east, parallel to and a few miles north of the Western Kentucky Parkway. This storm produced the strongest tornado of the day, from Hopkins County into extreme western Muhlenberg County. A funnel cloud accompanied the storm across the rest of Muhlenberg County. A third strongly rotating storm moved across Christian and Todd Counties, and another moved south and east of Owensboro.

The tornado was reported near the intersection of Highway 507 and Coal Bank Road. A few trees were down. This tornado was photographed from a school on Highway 181 near Highway 507.

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

5 minutes of warning. NWS PAH issued a tornado warning for this county at 19:17 UTC, 5 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 19:30 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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.15 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 16:38 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.

Clarksville/Outlaw (CKV), 40 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

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

80 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 81 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.