EF1 tornado, Tonieville to Roanoke, Kentucky, March 25, 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

March 25, 2021

Touchdown

10:44 PM EDT (02:44 UTC)

Lifted

10:49 PM EDT (02:49 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

4.7 miles (7.6 km)

Path width

75 yards (69 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Larue County

Touchdown point

37.626, -85.767

Lift-off point

37.668, -85.703

Record number

2103252044-01

1 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 90 mph.

• Multiple uprooted snapped and sheared trees . Garbage can and riding lawnmower Blown 50 yards ( lawn mower and 125 yards garbage can

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

Early in the day, low level wind shear was very strong. A stable layer over the area allowed a warm front to bring sunshine and warmer temperatures to the region, but the warming surface temperatures caused the stable layer to erode and become unstable. The high shear environment allowed storms, ahead of a cold front, to become severe and severe hail, damaging winds, and three tornadoes resulted.

The National Weather Service in conjunction with Larue County Emergency Management went on a lengthy storm damage survey across northeast LaRue County. ||A bow echo moving at over 50 mph produced sporadic straight-line wind damage with a distinct tornadic path, primarily along Slack Rd in the Roanoke community. The tornado touched down about a half mile west of 1598 Carter Brothers Road. Aerial photography from a NOAA NWS drone shows distinct swirls along several farmers' properties with damage to a half dozen barns and numerous uprooted and snapped trees. Cedar trees were the most common tree that sustained damage during this tornado. ||At 1598 Carter Brothers Rd, a riding lawn mower was thrown about 50 yards and a garbage can flew 150 yards. There were snapped, twisted, and uprooted trees facing in nearly every direction. Winds at this location were between 90 and 95 miles an hour. ||There were indications that this was an intermittent skipping tornado. Along Dan Dunn Road several barns sustained significant roof and sidewall damage, and a 50 foot by 50 foot chain link fence was bent at 90 degrees along every support post.||The most significant damage of the tornado path was found at 3000 Slack Rd. It destroyed two barns and did significant roof and siding damage to a well-built one-story residential home. Insulation and metal siding were thrown in multiple directions. At the end of the property, aerial drone photography showed trees going in nearly every direction. Wind speeds in this location were estimated to be 100 mph. Residents at the house said they could feel the intense pressure and everything trying to suck out of the house. ||On the way to the next storm damage survey we found sporadic straight line wind damage in Hardin County. This included three mobile homes that sustained roof damage near the Hardin County Fairgrounds.

From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.

23 minutes of warning. NWS LMK issued a tornado warning for this county at 02:21 UTC, 23 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 02:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:57 UTC and running to 03:27 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 01:00 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.

Elizabethtown (EKX), 17 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Louisville radar (KLVX), 41 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 02:44 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

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.