EF2 tornado, Cuba, Kentucky, March 1, 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 mph

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. EF2111 to 135 mphthis tornado

   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

EF2

Date

March 1, 2017

Touchdown

5:25 AM CST (11:25 UTC)

Lifted

5:27 AM CST (11:27 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

1.6 miles (2.5 km)

Path width

200 yards (183 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$170,000

County

Graves County

Touchdown point

36.583, -88.626

Lift-off point

36.587, -88.599

Record number

1703010525-01

39 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS PAH, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 120 mph.

• Several grave markers (headstones and base units) picked up and driven into ground. Some moved up to 30 feet.
• Headstones weighing up to a few hundred pounds blown up to 30 feet.
• Also damage to roof of church, to the south of cemetary, that was blown back to the WNW of building
• Machine shed blown from its foundation. 6x6's secured at least 3 feet into the ground supporting the shed were pulled up amd/or broken.

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

A squall line of severe thunderstorms produced widespread damaging winds from 70 to 80 mph across southwest Kentucky, mainly along and south of a Paducah to Princeton to Madisonville line. An isolated tornado was embedded within the damaging wind area. The squall line intensified ahead of an upper-level trough advancing east of the Plains states. The squall line was focused along and ahead of a cold front, where winds at 850 mb were southwesterly between 50 and 60 knots. Ahead of the squall line, the air mass was moist and rather unstable.

This tornado began near the community of Cuba and lifted after tracking about 1.5 miles. Peak winds were estimated near 120 mph. A single-family residence was destroyed. Much of the roof and upper portions of the house were removed. The roof was blown off a church. Several headstones in a cemetery were blown up to 30 feet. A number of barns were blown down. A machine shed was blown from its foundation. At least a dozen trees were uprooted. Dozens of others sustained broken limbs or trunks.

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.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 02:31 UTC and running to 14:00 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 Enhanced Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 05:42 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.

Mayfield (M25), 21 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Paducah radar (KPAH), 56 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 11:24 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

38 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.