EF2 tornado, Oakland to Smiths Grove, Kentucky, January 30, 2013

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

January 30, 2013

Touchdown

3:38 AM CST (09:38 UTC)

Lifted

3:41 AM CST (09:41 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

3.0 miles (4.8 km)

Path width

250 yards (229 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$400,000

County

Warren County

Touchdown point

37.027, -86.241

Lift-off point

37.046, -86.193

Record number

1301300338-01

56 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 122 mph.

• Total destruction of small pole barn.
• Barn destroyed. Debris fanned out to NE.
• boat marina canopy damaged
• GUSTANDO - convergent damage pattern with debris from smaller older SBO E of this bldg

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

During the evening hours on the 29th of January, low pressure across the southern plains began to intensify and move towards the western Great Lakes. A squall line developed during the evening hours and strengthened after midnight as it moved into western Kentucky and southern Illinois. This line, fueled by unseasonably mild temperatures near 70 degrees, dewpoints around 60, and an intense low level jet of 80kt at 850mb, spawned one of the largest January tornadic outbreaks on record across the Lower Ohio Valley. This line entered west central Kentucky around 2 am January 30th, exiting the Bluegrass and Lake Cumberland Regions during the pre-dawn hours. Several circulations along the squall line produced tornadoes. In addition, strong synoptic southerly winds right ahead and along this line produced localized wind damage.

An EF-2 tornado touched down just to the east of Interstate 65 around 3 miles southwest of Smith's Grove. After damaging several outbuildings, it encountered a set of 4 grain silos just to the south of Glasgow Road. It destroyed all 4 silos and threw their remains several hundred yards to the east. The tornado stayed on the ground for 3 miles, eventually crossing Interstate 65 just south of Smith's Grove. This tornado overturned a semi-trailer on the interstate. Before lifting up just to the east of Smith's Grove, it destroyed an older wooden barn and a large well constructed dairy barn, ripping steel I-beams out of their concrete base, scattering its roof, and collapsing its southern and eastern cinder block walls.

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.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 03:35 UTC and running to 09:51 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 06:09 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 Nashville radar (KOHX), 93 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 09:37 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

44 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.