Tornadoes · United States · Kentucky · 2013

EF1 tornado, Ferguson, Kentucky, March 24, 2013

This EF1 tornado ran 0.4 miles across Pulaski County on March 24, 2013, touching down at 5:40 PM EDT and reaching 80 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $100,000 of property damage.

The rating scale

Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Enhanced Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.

  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.

The record

Rating
EF1
Date
March 24, 2013
Touchdown
5:40 PM EDT (21:40 UTC)
Lifted
5:41 PM EDT (21:41 UTC)
On the ground
1 minutes
Path length
0.4 miles (0.6 km)
Path width
80 yards (73 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$100,000
County
Pulaski County
Touchdown point
37.065, -84.600
Lift-off point
37.068, -84.594
Record number
1303241540-01

The damage survey

7 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS JKL, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 102 mph.

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

What the Weather Service recorded

A few instances of wind damage and an isolated tornado was spawned in advance of a low pressure system tracking across central and eastern Kentucky during the early evening hours of Sunday March 24th.

A storm damage survey team consisting of officials from the National Weather Service in Jackson, KY and the Ferguson Fire Department confirmed damage from an EF-1 tornado in the Ferguson community. Touchdown occurred at a warehouse building on Waddle Street. The tornado traveled approximately 700 yards, destroying the warehouse, damaging the roofs of several homes and downing multiple trees along it's path. The warehouse building destroyed in this tornado received roof damage from the January 30th tornado as the two tornado tracks overlapped for a short distance.

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

The warnings

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
23:00 UTC16:11 UTCLake Wind AdvisoryJKL

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 forecast that day

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:56 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 air that afternoon

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.

Nashville Metro, TN (KBNA), 12:00Z

9.7 hours before the tornado, 207 km from the path. March 24, 2013.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Nashville Metro, TN at 12:00Z on 2013-03-24Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 0 joules per kilogram, CIN -87256, lifted condensation level 465 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Nashville Metro, TN at 12:00Z on 2013-03-24The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 117 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 61 knots.1939587897Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-87256 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
465 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
61 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
16 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
117 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
79 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
3.9 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Nashville Metro, TN (KBNA), 00:00Z

2.3 hours after it, 207 km from the path. March 25, 2013.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Nashville Metro, TN at 00:00Z on 2013-03-25Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 2 joules per kilogram, CIN -10, lifted condensation level 928 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Nashville Metro, TN at 00:00Z on 2013-03-25The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 103 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 69 knots.1939587897117Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
2 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-10 J/kg
Surface CAPE
28 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
928 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
69 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
28 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
103 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
154 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
6.9 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Jackson,KY radar (KJKL), 128 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:38 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.

What was reported nearby

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

Time (UTC)ReportWhereCountyRemark
21:16 UTCTSTM WND DMGMonticelloWayne, KYTWO ROOFS TAKEN OFF STORAGE BUILDINGS. PULLED POST OUT OF GROUND IN CEMENT.
21:38 UTCTSTM WND DMGFergusonPulaski, KY60 FOOT BY 100 FOOT METAL BUILDING LEVELED AND ROOF BLOWN OFF UNDER BUILDING.
21:40 UTCTORNADO1 Sse SomersetPulaski, KYAN EF1 TORNADO TOUCHED DOWN ON WADDLE STREET IN THE FERGUSON COMMUNITY CAUSING SUBSTANTIAL DAMAGE TO THE CONCRETE WALLS OF A WAREHOUSE BUILDING. SEVERAL HOMES SUSTAINED ROOF DAMAGE AND SEVERAL TREES WERE DOWNED. ESTIMATE
22:45 UTCTSTM WND DMGCorbinWhitley, KYDAMAGE OCCURRED ON FAIRFIELD AVENUE IN CORBIN. THE ROOF WAS TORN FROM A DOUBLEWIDE TRAILER. SEVERAL TREES WERE DOWNED. AN UPROOTED TREE FELL ACROSS A HOUSE AND CAR. SEVERAL POWER POLES WERE SNAPPED OFF. ESTIMATED STRAIGH

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2013 tornado in KentuckyEvery tornado in Kentucky since 1950Warnings in force in Kentucky nowThe forecast where you are

What this means

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.

Sources

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.