EF1 tornado, Hickory to Eureka, Kentucky, July 1, 2023

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

July 1, 2023

Touchdown

6:30 PM CDT (23:30 UTC)

Lifted

7:01 PM CDT (00:01 UTC)

On the ground

31 minutes

Path length

27.4 miles (44.1 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$245,000

Counties

Graves, Marshall and Lyon counties

Touchdown point

36.825, -88.657

Lift-off point

36.965, -88.193

Record number

2307011730-01

12 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 90 mph.

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

A couple of lines of thunderstorms moved northeast across far western Kentucky during the late afternoon and evening hours. The first line consisted of semi-discrete cells, one of which was associated with a weak tornado that tracked across the Kentucky Lake area. The second line was associated with a few isolated marginally severe wind gusts to 60 mph. The storms developed in response to a rather amplified 500 mb shortwave trough that progressed east into Iowa and Missouri by nightfall. With daytime heating, the atmosphere became very unstable in the afternoon. Mixed-layer capes were around 3000 j/kg late in the day. A belt of 35 to 45 knot mid-level west-southwesterly winds resulted in sufficient deep-layer wind shear for organized storm structures. An embedded tornado occurred in the vicinity of a residual outflow boundary arcing west from storms over central Kentucky.

The damage path began on the west side of U.S. Highway 45 near the community of Hickory. In this area, a pole was bent and there was major loss of roofing from a small barn. This is where the tornado was rated at its peak intensity of EF-1, with 90 mph winds. Along the rest of the path through Graves County, the only damage consisted of spotty broken branches and a few downed trees. The tornado exited into Marshall County northeast of the community of Clear Springs.

The weak tornado crossed into Marshall County from Graves County near the small community of Oak Level. There were numerous trees and power lines down east of Highway 641 to the Kentucky Lake shore. Damage in western Marshall County consisted of spotty broken tree branches and a few downed trees. Peak winds were estimated near 80 mph in Marshall County. The tornado exited into Lyon County after it moved over Kentucky Lake east of the Moors Camp area.

The weak tornado crossed Kentucky Lake from Marshall County and entered Lyon County in the Land-Between-The-Lakes National Recreation Area. The apparent damage path ended at the Twin Lakes campground, which is along the Kentucky Lake shore about two miles south of the canal between Lake Barkley and Kentucky Lake. Numerous campers were destroyed, and trees were downed. Peak winds in Lyon County were estimated near 80 mph. Witnesses in the area reported seeing funnel clouds.

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.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 17:06 UTC and running to 02:00 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 Enhanced Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:49 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), 36 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:30 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.