EF0 tornado, Belltown to Calvary, Kentucky, November 5, 2018

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

   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 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

EF0

Date

November 5, 2018

Touchdown

11:40 PM EST (04:40 UTC)

Lifted

11:42 PM EST (04:42 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

2.0 miles (3.2 km)

Path width

60 yards (55 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$35,000

County

Marion County

Touchdown point

37.525, -85.305

Lift-off point

37.526, -85.269

Record number

1811052240-01

18 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS LMK, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 85 mph.

• small trees (Bradford Pears?) snapped
• multiple small tree trunks snapped (pears)
• Older wooden barn flattened, collapsing to the SE. Cyclonic debris pattern of roofing debris wraps around to the NE-N-NW.
• antenna tower collapsed to the NNE; no evidence of being struck by any debris.

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

A potent low pressure system moved through the Midwest Monday, November 5, 2018. Showers and thunderstorms formed out ahead of the cold front trailing from the center of the system. Central Kentucky saw mainly heavy rain, but as the warm front lifted into southern Kentucky, a few storms became severe, causing damage. Three weak tornadoes were confirmed. Flooding was a minor issue as well, as saturated soils continued to allow water to pool from heavy rain events.

This very small tornado touched down on top of an older wooden barn on state highway 289 just south of the intersection with U.S. Highway 68. It flattened the structure, collapsing it to the southeast, while the metal roofing was distributed in a circulating pattern around it - from southeast to northeast to northwest, with the bulk being to the northeast. A 3-legged TV tower next to the adjacent home was crumpled to the north-northeast. Other than mud spattering from the south-southwest on the back corner of the brick one-story home, no other evidence of wind was observed, as no shingles were damaged.||The tornado immediately lifted over the home and nearby trees, then passed over a wooded area and open farmland, setting back down in a subdivision on the west side of New Calvary Road, about a mile east. Several small tree trunks were snapped in the subdivision, but no visible structural damage occurred. The tiny twister then continued to the northeast, causing other minor tree damage to the south of Probus Lane. The last tree damage was observed near a small pond near the end of Probus Lane. Maximum wind speeds were estimated at 80-85 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 04:31 UTC and running to 05:10 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 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:40 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 Louisville radar (KLVX), 76 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 04:41 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

19 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.