EF2 tornado, West Clifty to Lacon, Kentucky, February 29, 2012

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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF2

Date

February 29, 2012

Touchdown

9:42 AM CST (15:42 UTC)

Lifted

9:47 AM CST (15:47 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

2.0 miles (3.3 km)

Path width

200 yards (183 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

1

Property damage

$50,000

County

Grayson County

Touchdown point

37.482, -86.158

Lift-off point

37.486, -86.121

Record number

1202290942-01

29 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS LMK, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 134 mph.

Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.

Low pressure deepened rapidly as it moved north into Wisconsin during the early morning hours on the 29th of February. A regional severe weather outbreak developed during the early morning hours across Kansas, southern Missouri and southern Illinois. As a squall line entered western and central Kentucky, strong low level shear allow discrete supercells to form along this line. Several tornadoes and widespread severe hail developed during the late afternoon and early morning hours.

The tornado began as a narrow tornado east of Clarkson just south of Highway 224. The storm increased in width to 200 yards and struck several single and double wide mobile homes south of Millerstown Road. All three mobile homes became airborne, with one traveling over 400 yards. One manufactured home, with a man inside, was thrown 50 feet into a tree and fence. The victim was medically airlifted to Louisville. The tornado next struck a large area of softwood and hardwood trees before striking a solid brick home just west of Horntown with the roof removed and exterior walls either damaged or destroyed. The tornado damaged the Horntown convenience store damaging the roof. During the end of the tornado's life cycle it narrowed and bounced striking several trees and knocking over several cemetery headstones, plus it uprooted 2 large trees at the Little Clifty United Methodist Church just west of Lacon. The tornado lifted in a grove of trees about 250 yards east of the church.

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

16 minutes of warning. NWS LMK issued a tornado warning for this county at 15:26 UTC, 16 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 16:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 10:39 UTC and running to 17:38 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 13:00 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 Louisville radar (KLVX), 57 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 15:42 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 2012 tornado in KentuckyEvery tornado in Kentucky since 1950Warnings in force in Kentucky nowThe forecast where you are

31 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.