EF1 tornado, St Johns to Lone Oak, 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

7:37 PM CST (01:37 UTC)

Lifted

7:41 PM CST (01:41 UTC)

On the ground

4 minutes

Path length

1.9 miles (3.1 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$85,000

County

McCracken County

Touchdown point

36.990, -88.659

Lift-off point

37.011, -88.636

Record number

1802241937-02

6 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.

• A few shingles blown off of roof of house and garage of residence
• Winds got under an open barn and lifted the roof with some rafters damaged. Debris then flew into house, damaging the roof and siding. Pushed a small semi trailer a couple of feet and several 2x4's were embedded in the side. Other 2x4's were thrown over 100 yards from the barn and were partially buried up to 3 feet into the ground. Other outbuilings destroyed. Otherwise damage to trees, both uprooted and snapped. Farm equipment in barn was not moved.
• Damage to roof of residence and garage. Garage had window blown out and the west side of the garage was pushed out.
• Damage to roof. Trees in yard snapped. Trees behind home were damaged.

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-1 tornado began just south of Kentucky Highway 999 and moved northeast for about two miles. A barn was destroyed. Debris from the barn damaged a nearby house and was embedded into a small trailer over 100 yards away. Some debris was buried up to three feet deep. Another outbuilding was destroyed. As the tornado crossed Highway 999, it damaged the roofs of two homes. A garage between the two homes had windows broken, and the west side of the building was pushed out. Numerous trees were snapped and uprooted along the path of the tornado. There was an eyewitness account of the tornado. 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 21:16 UTC and running to 02:25 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 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. 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 Paducah radar (KPAH), 13 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:34 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.