EF0 tornado, Briensburg to Tatumsville, Kentucky, April 13, 2022

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

April 13, 2022

Touchdown

4:53 PM CDT (21:53 UTC)

Lifted

4:54 PM CDT (21:54 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.7 miles (1.1 km)

Path width

25 yards (23 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$8,000

County

Marshall County

Touchdown point

36.910, -88.290

Lift-off point

36.920, -88.290

Record number

2204131553-01

16 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 95 mph.

• One small tree snapped, multiple uprooted.
• Couple trees uprooted, some large branches fallen.
• Multiple trees uprooted, large limbs.
• Trees uprooted, damage to a fence.

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

A squall line of thunderstorms occurred ahead of a strong cold front that trailed southward from a low pressure center over the Great Lakes region. The squall line moved rapidly east-northeast from Arkansas and northwest Tennessee across southwest Kentucky. Pockets of minor to moderate wind damage occurred south of a line from Paducah to Madisonville to Owensboro. A few brief tornadoes accompanied meso-vortices within the line. Heavy rainfall associated with this system caused minor flooding on the Green River, along with a few flooded roads.

Large sections of metal roofing were blown off a shed. Some minor shingle damage occurred at a house. Tree limbs were broken. Peak winds were estimated near 70 mph.

The siding of a house was damaged. A porch roof was damaged. A small chicken coop was destroyed, and a barn roof was blown off. A few trees were damaged. Peak winds were estimated near 85 mph.

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

26 minutes of warning. NWS PAH issued a tornado warning for this county at 21:27 UTC, 26 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 21:54 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:35 UTC and running to 22:38 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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.15 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 19:59 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), 46 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:50 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 2022 tornado in KentuckyEvery tornado in Kentucky since 1950Warnings in force in Kentucky nowThe forecast where you are

39 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.