EF1 tornado, Idlewild, Kentucky, June 18, 2021

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

June 18, 2021

Touchdown

9:09 PM EDT (01:09 UTC)

Lifted

9:14 PM EDT (01:14 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

2.8 miles (4.4 km)

Path width

175 yards (160 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$50,000

County

Boone County

Touchdown point

39.087, -84.807

Lift-off point

39.088, -84.756

Record number

2106181909-01

Thunderstorms developed during the afternoon and evening hours as a low pressure system moved through a warm and humid airmass that was in place across the Ohio Valley.

The tornado first touched down near a home on Stevens Road in northern Boone County, northwest of Idlewild, causing minor roof damage to the home and damaging trees on the property. About a mile downstream, the tornado struck a barn, removing the roof and collapsing the walls. Numerous trees were also uprooted in the vicinity of the barn. Roofing material was lifted and deposited a considerable distance downstream, with roofing material lying along I-275 almost a half of a mile downstream of the barn. The tornado continued east along I-275 causing sporadic but minor tree damage. Another barn was damaged with partial roof removal on the south side of I-275. Some of this material was carried across I-275 and deposited about a half mile downstream on a nearby golf course. The tornado appears to have lifted in the vicinity of I-275, about a mile west of Exit 8.||There were some gaps in the damage path, indicating the tornado was not in complete and constant contact with the ground. The vast majority of the tree damage indicated wind speeds between 60 and 75 mph, though indications of wind speeds around 90 mph were present with the heavily damaged barn on the south side of I-275.

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.

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 00:48 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 Cincinnati radar (KILN), 91 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:08 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 2021 tornado in KentuckyEvery tornado in Kentucky since 1950Warnings in force in Kentucky nowThe forecast where you are

7 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.