EF0 tornado, Rosine, Kentucky, March 25, 2021

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

March 25, 2021

Touchdown

8:32 PM CDT (01:32 UTC)

Lifted

8:33 PM CDT (01:33 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.7 miles (1.1 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Ohio County

Touchdown point

37.448, -86.749

Lift-off point

37.454, -86.739

Record number

2103251932-01

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 conducted the storm survey in Ohio County. A bow echo structure created a very brief spin up tornado in the Rosine community in eastern Ohio County. ||The tornado touched down about 200 yards west of the Dollar General store. The tornado did some minor roof damage to the Dollar General store, along with the snapping and uprooting of a few trees. Drone imagery clearly saw the trees pointing in multiple directions. Winds in this area were estimated between 75 and 80 mph. ||The tornado was very intermittent as it moved to the east-northeast, with more substantial damage along State Highway 1544 in Rosine. Several homes received shingle damage, along with snapped and uprooted trees. ||A large RV protective carport was picked up and thrown about 50 yards, and subsequently a telephone pole was sheared off. A single wide mobile home was pushed off of its cinder block foundation to the southwest about 7 feet. Another mobile home sustained roof damage, and there was also significant rock and mud spatter against three sides of the mobile home. Winds were estimated to be a maximum of 85 mph in this area with a width of 50 yards. ||There were a number of cedar trees sheared off half way up the trees. Metal siding was thrown downwind up to 500 yards into the forest. The tornado lifted shortly after hitting those mobile homes.

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

24 minutes of warning. NWS LMK issued a tornado warning for this county at 01:08 UTC, 24 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:57 UTC and running to 02:31 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.

Greenville (M21), 44 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Louisville radar (KLVX), 91 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:31 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.