EF1 tornado, Murray to New Providence, Kentucky, March 9, 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

March 9, 2017

Touchdown

9:13 PM CST (03:13 UTC)

Lifted

9:19 PM CST (03:19 UTC)

On the ground

6 minutes

Path length

5.6 miles (9.0 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$75,000

County

Calloway County

Touchdown point

36.600, -88.332

Lift-off point

36.578, -88.235

Record number

1703092113-01

10 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS PAH, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 107 mph.

• dugout roof off blown into car and house across street. convergent dog.
• trees uprooted shingles off roof. 145 yards wide. roof damage off dug outs blown into house and car.
• table top driven into garage wall.
• 125 yards wide. bldg destroyed

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

An outbreak of severe thunderstorms occurred over the Tennessee border counties. Thunderstorms rapidly developed across western Kentucky ahead of a line of thunderstorms over the Missouri Bootheel region. These initial storms formed along a southwesterly low-level jet and its associated moisture plume. Large hail was the primary severe weather hazard in this leading activity, which was elevated above the surface. Later in the evening, a surface-based bowing line of thunderstorms exited southeast Missouri and then crossed southwest Kentucky. This bowing line was associated with an embedded supercell that spawned a few tornadoes. The storms developed along and just ahead of a cold front as it pressed southward into the Lower Ohio Valley and extreme southeast Missouri.

Peak winds were estimated near 95 mph. The path began in the southwest part of Murray and followed Highway 121 to about four miles southeast of Murray. Dugout roofs at the city high school ballfield in Murray were blown across the street into a home and car. Numerous very large trees were snapped and uprooted. About three miles outside the city limits of Murray, barns and outbuildings were heavily damaged. Most of the path was high-end EF-0 strength. Near the end of the path, the tornado intensified to EF-1. This is the area where a large section of roof and some trusses were blown off a well-built metal barn, and plastic projectiles were hurled through a garage wall. A building was destroyed by uprooted trees that fell on top of it.

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

5 minutes of warning. NWS PAH issued a tornado warning for this county at 03:08 UTC, 5 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 03:30 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 23:02 UTC and running to 03:42 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 00:51 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 Paducah radar (KPAH), 69 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 03:15 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

16 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.