EF1 tornado, Hackley, 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 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

February 24, 2018

Touchdown

12:50 AM EST (05:50 UTC)

Lifted

12:51 AM EST (05:51 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.1 miles (0.2 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$50,000

County

Garrard County

Touchdown point

37.624, -84.470

Lift-off point

37.626, -84.469

Record number

1802242350-01

16 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 105 mph.

• wood pointing left of path
• distant tree southern extent
• building shifted into fence
• older structure with some recent additions

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

A stalled frontal boundary interacting with highly anomalous moisture from the Gulf of Mexico interacted with multiple weather systems that brought widespread heavy rainfall and severe thunderstorms to central Kentucky February 24 through the early morning hours February 25. A Flash Flood Emergency was issued for Jefferson County, KY including Louisville metro. There were over 50 water rescues alone in Jefferson County that evening. Widespread flash flooding occurred with most streams and creeks reaching record levels. ||In addition, across south central Kentucky, 7 tornadoes developed along a warm front during the afternoon and evening hours. The strongest tornado was an EF-2 that tracked over 11 miles in Logan County and tragically killed a woman in her home. As a squall line moved through during the late evening and early morning hours, damaging winds occurred across central Kentucky.

A small and brief EF1 tornado touched down near a ridge-top on Gillespie Pike east of Lancaster. The tornado first uprooted a tree, then came to a small shed, which it shifted off its foundation into a fence. The main property for that shed then had a loss of roof covering as well as impact from debris. Another outbuilding was overturned and slid about 10 feet. The tornado then crossed the street, where a brick veneer home lost part of its outer wall, as it was struck by debris, as well as some roof damage. A couple of columns on the porch fell. The adjoining garage lost its roof and doors were bent inward, falling onto the vehicles inside. A barn behind the house collapsed and another outbuilding completely lost its walls, but the contents were not disturbed. This is the point where the tornado lifted.

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.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 02:34 UTC and running to 06:00 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 Slight 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.

Danville (DVK), 27 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Jackson,KY radar (KJKL), 102 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 05:49 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.