EF0 tornado, Beechburg, Kentucky, August 9, 2023

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

August 9, 2023

Touchdown

12:44 AM EDT (04:44 UTC)

Path length

0.3 miles (0.5 km)

Path width

75 yards (69 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$150,000

Crop damage

$15,000

County

Fleming County

Touchdown point

38.446, -83.641

Lift-off point

38.446, -83.641

Record number

2308092244-01

17 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS JKL, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 70 mph.

• Hole in side of mobile home, direction of force northward. Object causing the blunt force was not found.
• Panel from barn to the WSW was blown eastward and then northwestward into the other side of the trees about 150 yards away.
• Roofing material from barn blown ENE about 200 yards, going over several fences before landing in this location.
• Bent flag pole at the base, flag pole facing northward. Location 145 Colgan Road.

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

A weak low-top supercell brought rain and winds, but no lightning to Fleming County during the early morning hours of August 10, 2023. However, within this system, a weak tornado developed and tracked across portions of the county. By daybreak, dispatch and emergency management began receiving reports of damage that had |occurred in the Beechburg community just east of Flemingsburg. Radar did show some weak rotation that moved across this location. After an NWS Damage Survey, it was determined that an EF-0 tornado had touched down, starting near the intersection of |Beechburg Road and Colgan Road, and continued about a third of a mile down Colgan Road before dissipating. Based on the path of damage, it is also likely that this tornado only lasted about a minute, and skipped a few times along it's track before |dissipating.

Actual storm survey determined that tornado likely started and ended within the same minute, only traveling 0.3 miles in that time span. Starting location was 38.4464/-83.6408 and ending location was 38.4482/-83.6352. Due to limitations within the Storm Data interface, could not track the path of the storm since it shows the same start/end time. ||Damage was first observed on a property at the intersection of |Beechburg Road and Colgan Road, where the tornado directly |impacted several structures, including a wooden barn, a mobile |home, a shed, and a larger open barn located behind. All sides of |the mobile home sustained damage, including a large board impaled|into the roof, and some blunt force impacts from pieces of the |nearby barn that collapsed. Vehicles parked to the north and |northeast of the barn sustained heavy damage as it collapsed and |sections became airborne. Next the tornado hit a larger open- air|barn housing heavy equipment. Roof panels were torn off the west |side of the barn and sent up to 200 yards to the ENE. A little |ways down the road, another mobile home sustained blunt force |damage, including a large hole that punctured through into the |interior, as well as wind damage to all sides. Metal roofing from |the barn was found in a grove of trees to the northeast of this |house. The next door neighbor to the east faired better, but it |had debris from the metal barn in their yard, minor wind damage, |and a flagpole which was bent at the base laying northward. |Slightly farther up the road, the next property sustained major |tree damage, including several snapped trees and an uprooted tree,|though no structural damage. The tornado picked up a goat |enclosure in a grove of trees, lifted it over a fence, leaving the|fence untouched, and then tore the structure apart and twisted it|across the front yard of the property. Additional tree damage was|witnessed just past this location before the tornado lifted and |dissipated.

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.

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 General Thunderstorms Risk. 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.

Flemingsburg (FGX), 14 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Jackson,KY radar (KJKL), 99 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 04:44 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 2023 tornado in KentuckyEvery tornado in Kentucky since 1950Warnings in force in Kentucky nowThe forecast where you are

1 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.