F3 tornado, Brewers to Kuttawa, Kentucky, November 15, 2005

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

November 15, 2005

Touchdown

1:45 PM CST (19:45 UTC)

Path length

44.0 miles (70.8 km)

Path width

500 yards (457 m)

Deaths

1

Injuries

20

Property damage

$8.6 million

Counties

Graves, Calloway, Marshall and Lyon counties

Touchdown point

36.680, -88.630

Lift-off point

37.050, -88.000

Record number

1255

The total path length of the tornado across Graves, Calloway, Marshall, and Lyon Counties was 44 miles. Estimated time on the ground was 65 minutes.

The long-track tornado entered Marshall County from extreme northwest Calloway County. As the tornado moved quickly northeast across Marshall County, it reached its peak intensity of 200 MPH as it approached the Kentucky Lake resort campgrounds and boatyards. Until the tornado reached U.S. Highway 641 south of Benton, mostly F-1 damage occurred. Garages and barns sustained varying degrees of damage, and numerous trees were down. The most serious damage, ranging up to F-3 intensity, occurred from Big Bear Highway to Moor's Resort on Kentucky Lake. The occupant of a destroyed mobile home was killed in this area. The mobile home was thrown 40 feet and overturned before catching fire. At Moor's Resort, a year-round camping area was struck directly. A total of 115 RV's were destroyed, and the campground was devastated. A dock was demolished, taking a number of boats with it. Although the harbor and campground were destroyed, cabins and other lodging facilities outside of the tornado path were untouched. The average path width of this tornado was 275 yards, but it grew to a maximum of 500 yards in Marshall County. In Marshall County, approximately 19 homes were destroyed, 36 suffered major damage, and 65 received minor damage. The tornado then moved over Kentucky Lake and crossed into Lyon County.

The tornado entered Lyon County from Marshall County as it crossed Kentucky Lake. The tornado reached the lakeshore at Hillman Ferry campground, within the Land Between The Lakes (LBL) National Recreation Area. The tornado then moved east-northeast across the forests of LBL, producing a narrow swath of downed trees. After exiting LBL and crossing Lake Barkley, the tornado struck a subdivision on the east side of the lake. Damage to the well-constructed homes in this subdivision was estimated to be the result of F-2 winds. The tornado proceeded east-northeast across Interstate 24, passing near the 46-mile marker, before lifting at the community of Saratoga.

The deaths

1 direct deaths are recorded for this tornado, each with what Storm Data knows of it.

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

13 minutes of warning. NWS PAH issued a tornado warning for this county at 19:32 UTC, 13 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 20:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 13:43 UTC and running to 23:00 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 High Risk, with a 0.25 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 16:28 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), 46 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 19:45 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 2005 tornado in KentuckyEvery tornado in Kentucky since 1950Warnings in force in Kentucky nowThe forecast where you are

48 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.