EF1 tornado, Center, Kentucky, April 5, 2017

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 5, 2017

Touchdown

5:12 PM CDT (22:12 UTC)

Lifted

5:13 PM CDT (22:13 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.4 miles (0.6 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$75,000

County

Metcalfe County

Touchdown point

37.151, -85.696

Lift-off point

37.151, -85.689

Record number

1704051612-01

12 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 105 mph.

• Large barn destroyed, debris blown NNE
• start of damage. Barn laid down
• several headstones blown over in cemetery
• green house damaged and trees snapped

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

A strong area of low pressure tracked across the Ohio Valley on April 5. With an unseasonably warm and humid air mass in place, several lines of strong to severe thunderstorms developed across the area. This resulted in large hail and damaging winds across central Kentucky. There were also 4 tornadoes reported in central Kentucky.

This small tornado touched down near the intersection of Iron Mountain and Kidd Roads where it heavily damaged a barn, then moved east-northeast over open farmland before hitting a farm on the west side of Center Three Springs Road. It tore the back end off a large barn there and collapsed a 60 foot silo, then crossed the road and snapped off several trees before lifting. The doors on a nearby barn were blown in.

This small, short-lived tornado touched down shortly after the previous tornado to its northwest lifted. It began in a field west of Center Peggyville Road, taking out several trees in a tree line before moving east where it destroyed a large, well-built barn, lofting debris into the air and sending it as far as 1/4 mile to the east. After crossing the road, it snapped several trees on the edge of a large grove and narrowly missed another home.

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.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 18:50 UTC and running to 23:52 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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.15 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. 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.

The Louisville radar (KLVX), 94 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:10 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 2017 tornado in KentuckyEvery tornado in Kentucky since 1950Warnings in force in Kentucky nowThe forecast where you are

23 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.