Tornadoes · United States · Kentucky · 2006
F0 tornado, Cunningham, Kentucky, August 14, 2006
This F0 tornado ran 0.2 miles across Carlisle County on August 14, 2006, touching down at 6:33 PM CDT and reaching 50 yards wide. It killed nobody.
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.
F040 to 72 mphthis tornado
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
F173 to 112 mph
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
F4207 to 260 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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
- F0
- Date
- August 14, 2006
- Touchdown
- 6:33 PM CDT (23:33 UTC)
- Path length
- 0.2 miles (0.3 km)
- Path width
- 50 yards (46 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Carlisle County
- Touchdown point
- 36.920, -88.880
- Lift-off point
- 36.920, -88.880
- Record number
- 808
What the Weather Service recorded
A trained spotter witnessed a brief tornado touchdown in a field behind the Cunningham bank. Some trees were blown down.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.
The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 20:53 UTC and running to 01:51 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20:53 UTC | 01:51 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Watch | PAH |
| 23:23 UTC | 23:45 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | PAH |
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 Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:53 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), 12:00Z
11.6 hours before the tornado, 222 km from the path. August 14, 2006.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 384 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -25 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 37 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 611 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 18 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 16 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 165 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 185 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.1 K/km
Nashville Metro, TN (KBNA), 00:00Z
0.4 hours after it, 222 km from the path. August 15, 2006.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 1819 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -54 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 2428 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 956 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 23 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 16 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 116 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 137 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.8
- Supercell composite
- 5.8
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.6 K/km
The radar
The Paducah radar (KPAH), 19 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:34 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.
What was reported nearby
Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Report | Where | County | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23:19 UTC | TSTM WND GST 66 | Wickliffe | Ballard, KY | |
| 23:30 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Blandville | Ballard, KY | A FEW TREES DOWN NEAR BLANDVILLE AND NEAR LACENTER. A COUPLE OF TREES FELL ACROSS HIGHWAYS 802 AND 358. POWER OUTAGES AROUND BLANDVILLE. |
| 23:30 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Cunningham | Carlisle, KY | TREES DOWN IN CUNNINGHAM. MANY TREES DOWN NEAR HWY 62 AND IN THE TOWN OF CUNNINGHAM. TREE ON LP TANK. US 62 CLOSED FOR 15 MINUTES. |
| 23:34 UTC | TORNADO | Cunningham | Carlisle, KY | TORNADO WITNESSED BY SPOTTER...TOUCHED DOWN IN CUNNINGHAM BRIEFLY. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2006 tornado in KentuckyEvery tornado in Kentucky since 1950Warnings in force in Kentucky nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of August 14, 2006
2 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
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.