EF1 tornado, St Francis to Loretto, Kentucky, June 23, 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

June 23, 2017

Touchdown

6:05 PM EDT (22:05 UTC)

Lifted

6:07 PM EDT (22:07 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

2.1 miles (3.4 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$150,000

County

Marion County

Touchdown point

37.618, -85.436

Lift-off point

37.617, -85.398

Record number

1706231605-01

32 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.

• shifting wind patterns in vegetation
• supporting posts blown out from under roof
• snapped trunk - cyclonic debris pattern in tree damage
• small outbuilding destroyed

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

Tropical Storm Cindy made landfall along the Gulf Coast and quickly lifted northeast toward the lower Ohio Valley June 22-23. The remnants interacted with a cold front from the Upper Midwest to produced widespread heavy rainfall. The unseasonably moist air mass led to widespread rainfall amounts of 1-2 inches with an embedded swath of 3-6 inches across central Kentucky. This led to numerous reports of flash flooding with some swift water rescues occurring as well. Multiple roads across many counties were closed for a period of time due to the high water. Three river points rose into minor flood, mainly across the Bluegrass region. In addition, several strong to severe thunderstorms tracked across the area which brought down numerous trees and power poles. The environment also supported short spin-up tornadoes and 2 did touch down across central Kentucky.

This tornado spun up in a broader area of 40-60 mph winds that caused minor tree damage across an area over a mile wide in western Marion County. The tornado touched down on the edge of a large wooded area west of Highway 527 0.4 miles south of St Francis. Moving due east, it snapped the trunks of several large trees, blocking the highway, and mowed down a line of trees along Louis Mattingly Road. It continued to to tree-top damage in a heavily wooded area as it moved east, then tore roof panels off several hog barns on the south end of A. Mills Road. Drone footage of corn near the barns showed multiple streaks of converging winds in an area approximately 100 yards in width. Continuing to east-southeast, the tornado left downed numerous more trees in a cyclonic pattern on both sides of Spencer-Hamilton Road south of Loretto. Strong inflow and outflow winds estimated at 60-80 mph damaged several outbuildings and downed other trees south of the tornado along Spencer-Hamilton Road as the tornado dissipated. The Louisville NWS office thanks John Humphress and Tanner Thompson for the drone imagery that helped pinpoint the path of this rural tornado.

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

21 minutes of warning. NWS LMK issued a tornado warning for this county at 21:44 UTC, 21 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 22:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 19:32 UTC and running to 23:45 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 19:36 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), 61 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:02 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

5 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.