EF2 tornado, Hopkinsville to Hopkinsville Arpt, Kentucky, February 24, 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 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

February 24, 2018

Touchdown

8:45 PM CST (02:45 UTC)

Lifted

8:51 PM CST (02:51 UTC)

On the ground

6 minutes

Path length

5.4 miles (8.7 km)

Path width

200 yards (183 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

9

Property damage

$6.0 million

County

Christian County

Touchdown point

36.831, -87.484

Lift-off point

36.867, -87.396

Record number

1802242045-01

44 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 135 mph.

• Several cars blown up to 100 feet with one flipped around.
• 2 barns/garages with metal roofing and shingles partially blown off.
• Fencing blown over. Eyewitness report (public) of tornado sighted.
• At least a dozen trees with broken branches, some large.

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 and tornadoes occurred across western Kentucky. Most of the severe weather was along and south of a Paducah to Madisonville line. North of that line, serious flash flooding resulted in a fatality. A surface low pressure center tracked rapidly north-northeast from Arkansas to the upper Mississippi Valley, dragging a warm front north across western Kentucky. Instability was adequate for tornadoes and severe storms in the presence of very strong wind shear. A very moist air mass resulted in heavy rainfall, which produced localized flash flooding due to the water-logged ground. Locally 5 to 6 inches of rain had fallen over the previous week. Rainfall rates in these thunderstorms were locally one-half to one inch per hour.

This EF-2 tornado touched down on the south side of Hopkinsville, just west of the junction of the Pennyrile Parkway and U.S. Highway 41. Three apartment buildings near the intersection of the Pennyrile Parkway and U.S. 41 were destroyed. The roof and most walls were blown down on the second story. Another apartment building was heavily damaged. All nine injuries occurred in the apartment complex, which consisted of two-and-a-half story buildings. One car was flipped and blown some distance. Two others were blown from their original positions, and several others were damaged. At least four retail buildings sustained major roof and siding damage, with windows and doors blown in or broken. Four barns were heavily damaged or flattened, and four houses sustained mainly minor roof damage. Two large commercial buildings were damaged, with one sustaining major roof and wall damage. Hundreds of trees were snapped or uprooted. The damage east of the city near Highways 68 and 80 was relatively minor, consisting of uprooted trees, destroyed barns, and shingle damage. Peak winds were estimated near 135 mph at the destroyed apartment complex on the south side of Hopkinsville.

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 21:16 UTC and running to 03:23 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 00:42 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.

The Ft Campbell radar (KHPX), 19 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 02:43 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

29 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.