EF0 tornado, Valeria, Kentucky, April 9, 2011

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

   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 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

EF0

Date

April 9, 2011

Touchdown

2:05 PM EDT (18:05 UTC)

Lifted

2:09 PM EDT (18:09 UTC)

On the ground

4 minutes

Path length

0.3 miles (0.4 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$30,000

County

Wolfe County

Touchdown point

37.831, -83.516

Lift-off point

37.832, -83.511

Record number

1104091205-01

On April 9th, an stationary boundary draped across eastern Kentucky and a reinvigorated MCS moving into eastern Kentucky combined with afternoon heating set the stage for a high moderate severe weather event for east Kentucky. The convective complex produced multiple instances of left moving supercells, fully developed strong supercells and even a squall line developed and moved into east Kentucky. The event set the stage for multiple severe thunderstorm warnings for winds and hail. Some cells had rotation at multiple levels and quite a few tornado warnings were issued. There was even a need for a flash flood warning as some areas received heavy rain where it occurred the day before.

A National Weather Service storm damage survey team determined that an EF-0 tornado touched down briefly in Wolfe County near county road 2027 in the town of Valeria. The tornado lifted and moved a well constructed oak barn, twisted and uprooted many large trees, and destroyed and tossed a well anchored car port. There was also additional minor damage to two homes and a car due to this tornado. The maximum wind speeds of this tornado were estimated to have been between 80 and 85 mph.

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

21 minutes of warning. NWS JKL issued a tornado warning for this county at 17:44 UTC, 21 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 18:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 18:01 UTC and running to 20:23 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 16:21 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 Jackson,KY radar (KJKL), 32 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 18:04 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 2011 tornado in KentuckyEvery tornado in Kentucky since 1950Warnings in force in Kentucky nowThe forecast where you are

27 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.