EF1 tornado, Pottertown to Faxon, Kentucky, February 5, 2008

1. EF065 to 85 mph

   Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

2. EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. EF2111 to 135 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. EF3136 to 165 mph

   Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.

5. EF4166 to 200 mph

   Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

6. EF5over 200 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

EF1

Date

February 5, 2008

Touchdown

6:25 PM CST (00:25 UTC)

Lifted

6:28 PM CST (00:28 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

1.4 miles (2.3 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$35,000

County

Calloway County

Touchdown point

36.638, -88.157

Lift-off point

36.655, -88.142

Record number

0802051825-01

A deepening low pressure system moved northeast from Arkansas along a warm front that extended across southeast Missouri and southern Illinois. Surface dew points were in the upper 50's to lower 60's along and southeast of the warm front. A strong upper level trough over the western Plains produced a strong southwest flow of 60 to 80 knots at 500 mb. Winds at 850 mb were south to southwest around 40 knots.

Peak winds were estimated around 95 mph. The average path width was 90 yards. One home received shingle damage. Two large windows were blown out of another home, with significant interior damage. Winds entered the attic, then blew out the interior ceilings. Sporadic tree damage was observed along the path length.

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

29 minutes of warning. NWS PAH issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:56 UTC, 29 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 21:13 UTC and running to 06:00 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 0.30 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 19:40 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.

Murray (CEY), 20 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Paducah radar (KPAH), 73 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:25 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 2008 tornado in KentuckyEvery tornado in Kentucky since 1950Warnings in force in Kentucky nowThe forecast where you are

61 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 62 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.