EF1 tornado, Berea Richmond Fld to Brassfield, Kentucky, April 7, 2015

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

April 7, 2015

Touchdown

7:03 PM EDT (23:03 UTC)

Lifted

7:06 PM EDT (23:06 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

2.0 miles (3.2 km)

Path width

215 yards (197 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$15,000

County

Madison County

Touchdown point

37.660, -84.180

Lift-off point

37.655, -84.149

Record number

1504071703-01

22 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 95 mph.

• and large section of hard maple snapped
• large pine tree snapped, shingle damage on residence on rainbow circle, width of 35 yards
• tornado lifts 50 yards past this point
• 326 Jessica Circle lots of roof, shingle, and support damage. security camera has the damages 6:29 PM

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

A compact storm system interacted with a warm and unstable airmass in the late afternoon and evening of April 7th to produce severe weather over portions of central Kentucky. Wind damage and large hail were common with the strongest storms and 2 tornadoes occurred in Madison County. The heavy rain that fell, already on top of saturated ground, brought a few rivers into flood.

The tornado first touched down near a ravine just northwest of Jessica Circle where it snapped a few trees. It then moved southeast, destroying two outbuildings. One of the outbuildings was fully packed, weighing several thousand pounds, and another larger outbuilding was pushed off its foundation. The tornado also did some damage to the roof and shingles of a residence at 326 Jessica Circle. The tornado then continued on an intermittent path to the southeast where it did some additional roof damage to another home and snapped several other trees. The tornado lifted just west of Cherokee Lane.

The tornado first touched down on a farm at 1235 Crooksville Road where it snapped and uprooted several trees, spreading them in several directions. It then continued southeast across Gumbottom Road, where a large oak tree was uprooted. Sporadic tree damage continued southeast towards Walter Lakes Road. Just before the tornado lifted, it did minor shingle and porch damage to a residence along Walter Lakes Road.

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

17 minutes of warning. NWS LMK issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:46 UTC, 17 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:10 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 20:59 UTC and running to 00:00 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 Marginal Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:46 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 Jackson,KY radar (KJKL), 75 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:01 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 2015 tornado in KentuckyEvery tornado in Kentucky since 1950Warnings in force in Kentucky nowThe forecast where you are

8 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.