EF0 tornado, Symsonia to Oak Level, Kentucky, April 18, 2013

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 18, 2013

Touchdown

8:54 PM CDT (01:54 UTC)

Lifted

8:59 PM CDT (01:59 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

3.6 miles (5.8 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$43,000

Counties

Marshall and Graves counties

Touchdown point

36.858, -88.520

Lift-off point

36.883, -88.463

Record number

1304181954-01

15 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS PAH, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 85 mph.

• About a half dozen medium tree snapped.
• Some tree branches down as well.
• 2 homes with a few shingles lost
• A medium size tree was blown down.

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

Small, low-topped thunderstorm line segments moved northeast in a region of strong vertical wind shear and very weak instability. These line segments produced a few short-track, weak tornadoes and isolated wind damage. The tornadoes formed from mesovortices embedded within the line. There was little if any lightning associated with the convection. The storms occurred along a cold front that extended southward from a low pressure center in northern Illinois.

There was shingle and soffit damage to several homes. Several trees were snapped, and large branches were blown down. The average damage path width was 150 yards, and the peak winds were about 80 mph. The tornado moved into Marshall County near the community of Oak Level.

The tornado continued from Graves County into Marshall County. There was shingle and soffit damage to a few homes. Several trees were snapped, and large branches were blown down. The average damage path width was 150 yards, and the peak winds were about 80 mph.

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

16 minutes of warning. NWS PAH issued a tornado warning for this county at 01:38 UTC, 16 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 01:00 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 Paducah radar (KPAH), 33 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:54 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 2013 tornado in KentuckyEvery tornado in Kentucky since 1950Warnings in force in Kentucky nowThe forecast where you are

13 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.