EF3 tornado, Hackley to Bybee, Kentucky, May 8, 2009

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

May 8, 2009

Touchdown

4:55 PM EDT (20:55 UTC)

Lifted

5:19 PM EDT (21:19 UTC)

On the ground

24 minutes

Path length

21.1 miles (34.0 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

2

Injuries

15

Counties

Garrard and Madison counties

Touchdown point

37.650, -84.470

Lift-off point

37.746, -84.103

Record number

0905081455-01

A long-lived bow echo that had produced widespread wind damage over southern Illinois moved east into Kentucky during the late morning hours. As it moved east, the system encountered a strengthening low-level jet across the Ohio Valley, which helped modify the motion of the line, resulting in training storms of extremely heavy rain that caused flash flooding. Individual storms developing ahead of the line continued to produce damaging winds, with two storms producing tornadoes, before the main area of convection moved through. ||NWS damage surveys determined the tornado in south-central Kentucky to be EF-1 in intensity, while the east-central Kentucky was ranked as a strong EF-3. The EF-3 tornado resulted in two fatalities and numerous injuries.

The tornado first touched down in the Nina Ridge Road area three miles ESE of McCreary in Garrard County. The tornado caused EF-1 damage at this location before strengthening to EF-2 just before entering Madison County. ||Near the intersection of Highways 1295 and 52 in Madison County, the tornado reached EF-3 intensity. Near this intersection, two adults were killed when the mobile home they were in was picked up and thrown by the tornado. The bodies were recovered from a nearby pond. Five other occupants of the mobile home, including three children, were injured. A female relative in a brick home just yards away from the mobile home received only minor injuries despite being pinned under a collapsed wall in the house. ||The tornado weakened and lifted at times as it continued east across the county, but still caused significant damage. It tore much of the roof off a fire station on the south side of Richmond before moving over the Bluegrass Army Depot toward the community of Waco in the eastern part of the county. After doing extensive damage to mainly roofs in a subdivision of brick homes near Waco, the tornado destroyed a mobile home in the area, carrying two teenage male occupants of the home through the air before dropping them near an elementary school 300 yards away. The teens miraculously received only minor injuries. The tornado weakened significantly from this point on, doing only minor roof damage and downing trees as it continued eastward before lifting near the end of Drowning Creek Road. ||The tornado was up to 150 yards wide with maximum estimated wind speeds up to 140 mph. Approximately 150 homes received damage, the most severe being several brick homes where only interior walls remained standing in the wake of the tornado.

The tornado first touched down in the Nina Ridge Road area three miles ESE of McCreary in Garrard County. The tornado caused EF-1 damage at this location before strengthening to EF-2 just before entering Madison County. ||Near the intersection of Highways 1295 and 52 in Madison County, the tornado reached EF-3 intensity. Near this intersection, two adults were killed when the mobile home they were in was picked up and thrown by the tornado. The bodies were recovered from a nearby pond. Five other occupants of the mobile home, including three children, were injured. A female relative in a brick home just yards away from the mobile home received only minor injuries despite being pinned under a collapsed wall in the house. ||The tornado weakened and lifted at times as it continued east across the county, but still caused significant damage. It tore much of the roof off a fire station on the south side of Richmond before moving over the Bluegrass Army Depot toward the community of Waco in the eastern part of the county. After doing extensive damage to mainly roofs in a subdivision of brick homes near Waco, the tornado destroyed a mobile home in the area, carrying two teenage male occupants of the home through the air before dropping them near an elementary school 300 yards away. The teens miraculously received only minor injuries. The tornado weakened significantly from this point on, doing only minor roof damage and downing trees as it continued eastward before lifting near the end of Drowning Creek Road. ||The tornado was up to 150 yards wide with maximum estimated wind speeds up to 140 mph. Approximately 150 homes received damage, the most severe being several brick homes where only interior walls remained standing in the wake of the tornado.

The deaths

2 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.

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 17:44 UTC and running to 23:29 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 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 20:17 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.

Danville (DVK), 45 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Jackson,KY radar (KJKL), 87 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:54 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 2009 tornado in KentuckyEvery tornado in Kentucky since 1950Warnings in force in Kentucky nowThe forecast where you are

45 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.