EF1 tornado, Stonewall to Delaplain, 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

3:45 PM EDT (19:45 UTC)

Lifted

3:50 PM EDT (19:50 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

3.7 miles (6.0 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$20,000

County

Scott County

Touchdown point

38.456, -84.603

Lift-off point

38.447, -84.536

Record number

1410071345-01

223 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.

• numerous hard and soft wood trees snapped in well-defined cut through trees line
• well-defined cut in Treeline
• northernmost edge of Treeline damage
• apparent debris from home approximately 100 yards west southwest

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 touched down in Owen County south of the|intersection of Leaning Oak Road and Dudley Pike. The storm quickly|crossed into Scott County and struck North Rays Fork Road where it|snapped and uprooted trees. The tornado had a total path length of 4.1 miles, of which 3.6 miles lay in Scott County. Moving to the east southeast, tree|damage was found along South Rays Fork Road east of Stonewall. The|tornado lifted just west of the Harrison County line. The only|structural damage along the path was to a home near the top of a|small hill close to the end of the path. The porch roof was ripped|from the home and thrown over the building, with significant roof|damage. Also, an above-ground pool was destroyed.

The tornado began as an EF-0 with 80 mph winds as it snapped and|uprooted multiple trees and caused minor siding damage to a house just west of Locust Fork Road and a mile north of Stamping Ground.||It then traveled eastward, crossing Locust Fork Road, damaging two outbuildings. After the tornado moved northeast across rural terrain, it damaged the roofs of several houses on the north side of Stone Hill Road. It also tore off a south-facing front porch. Just west of Graves Road, the tornado damaged a small outbuilding and the roof of another residence. The damage in the Stone Hill and Graves Road areas was rated EF-1. Further east, between Graves and Long Lick Roads, the tornado damaged some hardwood trees. Finally, it pushed an achored mobile home off its foundation - ripping the anchors out of the ground - and damaged outbuildings along Long Lick Road before lifting.

This rural EF-1 tornado touched down around one quarter of a mile northwest of the intersection of Glass and Sulphur Wells Road where it snapped several hardwood trees. Winds with this initial damage ranged from 70-107 mph. The tornado then moved southeast where more trees were snapped and an outbuilding was destroyed. As the tornado neared the end of its path a couple of small barns were destroyed with winds estimated from from 90 and 107 mph. At the end of the path, a couple of homes sustained roof damage, in addition to continued tree damage. The tornado lifted just east of Cincinnati Road, about 4 miles NNW of|Georgetown.

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

9 minutes of warning. NWS ILN issued a tornado warning for this county at 19:36 UTC, 9 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 20:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 18:07 UTC and running to 23:44 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 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 Cincinnati radar (KILN), 126 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 19:43 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.