EF1 tornado, Oakton to New Cypress, Kentucky, April 3, 2018

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 3, 2018

Touchdown

7:09 PM CDT (00:09 UTC)

Lifted

7:10 PM CDT (00:10 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.3 miles (0.5 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$20,000

County

Hickman County

Touchdown point

36.709, -89.035

Lift-off point

36.710, -89.030

Record number

1804031809-01

5 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 100 mph.

• treees snapped. 50 yards wide.
• chicken barn wall blown out.
• trees snapped uprooted. roof lifted off barn and thrown 50 feet into woods. metal roof peeled back on house. rotten tree fell on mobile home destroyed it.

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

Clusters of strong to severe thunderstorms moved eastward out of southern Illinois and southeast Missouri. The storms produced four tornadoes over the far western counties of Kentucky before weakening as they moved east across the Kentucky Lake region. The most significant tornado, which occurred over Livingston County, was rated EF-2. The severe storms occurred ahead of a cold front that accelerated east-southeast toward the lower Ohio Valley. Cooling aloft ahead of a shortwave trough over the Plains, combined with diurnal heating and moist southerly winds, resulted in a corridor of convection ahead of the front. The storms weakened somewhat as they moved east across the Kentucky Lake region into slightly drier and more stable air.

This brief tornado occurred along the west side of Kentucky Highway 58. Trees were snapped and uprooted. A roof was lifted off a barn and thrown 50 feet into some woods. A metal roof was peeled back on a house. A rotten tree fell on a mobile home and destroyed it. Peak winds were estimated near 100 mph.

This very brief tornado occurred in farm country of northeast Hickman County. All walls were blown out of a chicken barn. Peak winds were estimated near 100 mph.

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 18:38 UTC and running to 00:46 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 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 19:33 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), 46 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:11 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 2018 tornado in KentuckyEvery tornado in Kentucky since 1950Warnings in force in Kentucky nowThe forecast where you are

21 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.