EF3 tornado, Amos to Fountain Run, Kentucky, February 6, 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 mph

   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 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. 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

EF3

Date

February 6, 2008

Touchdown

1:40 AM CST (07:40 UTC)

Lifted

1:53 AM CST (07:53 UTC)

On the ground

13 minutes

Path length

9.4 miles (15.2 km)

Path width

440 yards (402 m)

Deaths

4

Injuries

11

Property damage

$1.3 million

Crop damage

$200,000

Counties

Allen and Monroe counties

Touchdown point

36.640, -86.113

Lift-off point

36.706, -85.959

Record number

0802060140-01

A cold front along with a strong upper level low produced a squall line that crossed central Kentucky. This set off widespread severe weather, and spawned several tornadoes.

The tornado destroyed 12 homes and mobile homes, mainly in the Amos community and in the Tracy Lane area. Many other homes and buildings were damaged. Four people were killed in the Tracy Lane area, and eleven others were injured in southeast Allen County. The tornado continued through rural and wooded sections of eastern Allen County, and crossed into Monroe County, Kentucky near the town of Fountain Run.

This EF3 tornado crossed into a wooded section of Monroe County from Allen County, and lifted near Highway 87 south of the town of Fountain Run. Several outbuildings were destroyed and a car was flipped on Circle D Lane. On Akersville Road, fences were downed and about 200,000 log feet of timber were knocked down.

The deaths

4 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.

3 minutes of warning. NWS LMK issued a tornado warning for this county at 07:37 UTC, 3 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 08:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 05:43 UTC and running to 09:44 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 General Thunderstorms Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 05:58 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.

Glasgow Municipal (GLW), 41 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Nashville radar (KOHX), 67 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 07:38 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

23 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.