EF1 tornado, White Sulpher, Kentucky, January 17, 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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF1

Date

January 17, 2012

Touchdown

12:12 PM EST (17:12 UTC)

Lifted

12:13 PM EST (17:13 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.5 miles (0.7 km)

Path width

75 yards (69 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$30,000

County

Scott County

Touchdown point

38.197, -84.663

Lift-off point

38.198, -84.654

Record number

1201171112-01

Low pressure moved across the southern Great Lakes during the morning hours on January 17th. A strong cold front crossed southern Indiana during the early afternoon. Ahead of this boundary, a squall line fueled by temperatures in the lower 60s with dewpoints in the upper 50s moved across the Ohio River during the late morning. This line continued to the southeast, finally exiting central Kentucky near the lake Cumberland Area around mid-afternoon. This line of storms exhibited bowing segments and occasional mesovorticies that brought several tornadoes and scattered wind damage. The 9 tornadoes surveyed across both central Kentucky and southern Indiana made this episode the most prolific regional January tornado outbreak recorded.

The tornado touched down at 338 Soards Road and moved east, lifting as it began to cross a pond. A well-anchored 50 by 20 three bay barn was destroyed and scattered in three directions. Another small barn was destroyed, with damage to a third structure. Numerous trees were blown down, snapped or uprooted. Fences were blown over.

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.

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 16:26 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), 115 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 17:12 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

11 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.