EF2 tornado, Mize to Gordon Ford, 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

1:42 PM EST (18:42 UTC)

Lifted

1:50 PM EST (18:50 UTC)

On the ground

8 minutes

Path length

6.3 miles (10.2 km)

Path width

400 yards (366 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$100,000

County

Morgan County

Touchdown point

37.874, -83.371

Lift-off point

37.876, -83.256

Record number

1202291242-01

A strong cold front sparked widespread strong to severe thunderstorms as it moved across the Ohio and Tennessee valley regions during the afternoon and early evening hours of February 29th. The bulk of the severe weather events on this day were large hail and damaging winds. Isolated flooding and two tornadoes also occurred. An EF-2 tornado was confirmed in Morgan county while an EF-1 moved through portions of western Pulaski county.

A storm damage team from the National Weather Service office in Jackson, Kentucky confirmed that an EF-2 tornado touched down in Morgan county on February 29, 2012. The tornado touched down about 6 miles southwest of West Liberty near the town of Grassy Creek. The tornado track was not continuous, but instead made several touchdowns and liftoffs before dissipating near the community of Malone. Winds were estimated at around 120 mph. Several structures were damaged along the path of the tornado, with the most extreme damage occurring to a residential structure in the Malone area.

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

24 minutes of warning. NWS JKL issued a tornado warning for this county at 18:18 UTC, 24 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 18:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 17:34 UTC and running to 02:00 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 17:35 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.

Jackson/J. Carroll (JKL), 32 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), 32 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 18:41 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.