EF0 tornado, Allensville to Olmstead, Kentucky, January 1, 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

January 1, 2022

Touchdown

11:16 AM CST (17:16 UTC)

Lifted

11:22 AM CST (17:22 UTC)

On the ground

6 minutes

Path length

5.9 miles (9.5 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$3,000

Counties

Todd and Logan counties

Touchdown point

36.697, -87.098

Lift-off point

36.740, -87.010

Record number

2201011116-01

40 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS LMK and NWS PAH, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 110 mph.

• Tree appeared to be older and possibly dead. No bark remaining.
• Isolated snapped trunk. Appears healthy. Diameter around 1-2ft.
• Isolated snapped trunk. Some tree rot. Outer edge of circulation.
• Isolated uprooted tree. Appears healthy.

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

A well-defined upper level shortwave trough shifted northeast across Missouri into the Ohio Valley, where it flattened out within a broader, strong southwesterly flow regime. The resultant mid level forcing was not very strong across the warm sector of the surface low. The weak surface low tracked northeast from Arkansas to West Virginia. Thunderstorms formed along the trailing cold front, which crossed parts of western Kentucky during the mid and late morning hours. A couple of embedded supercells formed within a broken band of storms along the front, spawning a couple of brief tornadoes. A period of widespread rain during the late night and early morning hours generated heavy rainfall amounts from 2 to 4 inches.

During New Year's Eve into New Year's Day, active weather was observed across Kentucky as several waves of low pressure moved along a frontal boundary that was stalled across the region. This resulted in multiple rounds of widespread precipitation, and rainfall amounts of 2 to 4 inches with locally higher amounts observed across the area. As the boundary lifted north as a warm front New Year's Day, strong to severe storms were able to develop within the warm sector ahead of an approaching cold front, with multiple tornadoes and scattered straight-line wind damage being observed.

Many large tree branches were broken. A few trees were snapped. The tornado occurred in rural farm country, and no structures were damaged in the Todd County portion of the path. Peak winds in Todd County were estimated near 75 mph. The tornado exited into Logan County about a mile southeast of Allensville.

This confirmed tornado was a continuation of a tornadic storm that crossed from Todd County Kentucky to Logan County Kentucky. The tornado first crossed the Todd/Logan county line about a mile south of Allensville around 12:19 PM EST. Small tree limbs were broken along Keysburg Road (KY Route 102). The tornado continued across mostly rural fields before striking a barn along Joe Riley road where major roof damage was observed as well as moderate tree damage. Near this location is where the max wind speeds were observed at 85 mph, or high end EF-0. This rating was changed from a previously reported EF-1 rating due to the nature of surrounding damage observed.||The tornado continued along rural open farm fields before damaging a mix of hard and softwood trees. Some trees had large limbs downed, while others had snapped trunks along Kenny Stratton Road west of Lickskillet. The tornado ended at around 12:22 PM EST along with no further damage observed past Olmstead Road.

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

0 minutes of warning. NWS PAH issued a tornado warning for this county at 17:16 UTC, 0 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 17:30 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 16:23 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.

Springfield (M91), 24 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Ft Campbell radar (KHPX), 21 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 17:17 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

13 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.