EF0 tornado, Prichard Place, Kentucky, July 10, 2015

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

   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 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

EF0

Date

July 10, 2015

Touchdown

10:38 AM EDT (14:38 UTC)

Lifted

10:41 AM EDT (14:41 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

2.5 miles (4.0 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$25,000

County

Hardin County

Touchdown point

37.879, -85.976

Lift-off point

37.890, -85.932

Record number

1507100838-01

28 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS LMK, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 82 mph.

• Large part of trunk of healthy sycamore tree snapped
• small trunk tree snapped, lying northeast
• several large limbs down on garage
• rotted tree trunk snapped. Winds definitely below EF1 scale

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

A moist and unstable air mass interacted with a stalled frontal boundary across central Kentucky and an approaching upper level disturbance to spark a round of severe thunderstorms during the late morning and afternoon hours July 10th. Damaging winds brought down trees and power lines resulting in some structural damage across the area. A couple of short lived tornadoes were also found to have occurred near Fort Knox and Belmont, Kentucky.

This is the continuation of the weak, skipping tornado that began just west of the boundary of Ft. Knox in Meade County, KY. This tornado passed into Hardin County 0.7 miles WSW of the U.S. Gold Depository on Ft. Knox, traveled east for approximately 0.5 miles, then turned northeast over the PX and commissary complex before lifting 0.6 miles ENE of the base High School near Wilson Rd. Several large Hackberry and Oak trees were uprooted and snapped between the PX and Scott Middle School. There was also some shingle damage to some of the buildings near the high school track. The tornado also caused significant tree damage from the middle school north/northeast across a remote area of the northeast part of the post.

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.

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. The outlook in force was issued at 12:58 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.

Fort Knox/Godman (FTK), 3 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The Louisville radar (KLVX), 10 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 14:36 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

2 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.