F1 tornado, Dixon, Kentucky, September 22, 2006

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

September 22, 2006

Touchdown

5:17 PM CDT (22:17 UTC)

Path length

6.0 miles (9.7 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$150,000

County

Webster County

Touchdown point

37.520, -87.720

Lift-off point

37.570, -87.630

Record number

915

Most of the structural damage from this tornado occurred in Dixon, where two homes received major damage, and numerous others sustained minor damage. There was extensive roof damage at an apartment building and a grocery store in Dixon. Damage to roofs and outbuildings was the most common type of damage. A total of 28 structures were damaged, mostly due to falling trees. All along the tornado path, numerous trees were uprooted or topped, and some utility poles were snapped. Some trees fell across roads, blocking them. Kentucky Highway 138 was blocked for a time. Other trees fell on structures such as the grocery store in Dixon. Peak winds were estimated near 110 MPH. In Dixon, a wind gust to 111 MPH was measured by the deputy emergency management director using Davis wind equipment. This tornado was spawned by the same supercell thunderstorm that produced a tornado in Crittenden County.

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

31 minutes of warning. NWS PAH issued a tornado warning for this county at 21:46 UTC, 31 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 22:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:37 UTC and running to 05:00 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:56 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 Evansville,IN radar (KVWX), 80 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:33 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 2006 tornado in KentuckyEvery tornado in Kentucky since 1950Warnings in force in Kentucky nowThe forecast where you are

32 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.