EF1 tornado, Paris, Kentucky, October 7, 2014

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

October 7, 2014

Touchdown

4:12 PM EDT (20:12 UTC)

Lifted

4:15 PM EDT (20:15 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

1.7 miles (2.7 km)

Path width

60 yards (55 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

1

Property damage

$250,000

County

Bourbon County

Touchdown point

38.202, -84.256

Lift-off point

38.217, -84.231

Record number

1410071412-01

35 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS LMK, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 110 mph.

• 2 by 4 went threw window in kitchen
• One female got sucked out of the house and landed on driveway, 6 stitches at hospital
• Side of the attic blown in. This side of the house was facing ENE.
• Empty tanker flipped toward the west. Tanker was made of a plastic material, not a heavy metal

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

A deep closed low near Hudson's Bay on October 7th brought cyclonic flow to the Lower Ohio Valley. Disturbances rotating around this feature brought several rounds of convection from late morning through the evening hours. Low freezing levels and veering and strengthening winds with height provided the ingredients for rotating storms and very large hail. During the late morning hours, a severe convective line segment exhibiting areas of rotation moved southeast across southern Indiana, crossed the Ohio River just north of Louisville, and moved across the northern Bluegrass Region north of Frankfort and Lexington. This fast moving line of storms brought widespread wind damage and large hail to Clark County, Indiana and along its path across the northern Bluegrass. Rotation increased within this storm complex when it was north of Lexington, when it spawned a family of relatively weak tornadoes. This initial round of storms left behind a stationary boundary. By mid afternoon, a whole series of rotating supercells developed along this boundary, each of then tracking essentially along the same path from southern Indiana into Oldham County and across the northern Bluegrass. These individual storms each produced large hail and occasional funnel clouds.

The tornado first touched down near Vine Street. Several|homes sustained significant damage including losses to portions of|roofs and damage to walls and siding. The tornado had winds of|100 mph on Vine Street and a narrow width of around 50 yards. Half|dollar size hail also occurred. One woman at 1129 Vine Street was sucked out of the house and landed on the porch. She sustained an injury requiring several stitches. Multiple trees and power lines were downed as well. Several trees fell on homes. The|tornado then lifted east of Vine Street for approximately one mile.||The tornado touched down again on the east side of the Stoner Creek|Country Club where it caused tree damage. It caused attic and soffit|damage to several homes on Windermere Lane. The tornado had winds of|80 to 85 mph during the second touchdown. Quarter size hail occurred|also. The tornado then continued to the northeast where it caused|significant damage to a couple of warehouses, finally flipping an empty tractor trailer before lifting near US-460.

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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 18:05 UTC and running to 02:08 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 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:59 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.

Mount Sterling (IOB), 28 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), 107 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:13 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 2014 tornado in KentuckyEvery tornado in Kentucky since 1950Warnings in force in Kentucky nowThe forecast where you are

12 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.