EF1 tornado, Beech Bottom, Kentucky, July 2, 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 2, 2023

Touchdown

7:55 PM EDT (23:55 UTC)

Lifted

7:56 PM EDT (23:56 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.1 miles (0.2 km)

Path width

40 yards (37 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Casey County

Touchdown point

37.381, -84.979

Lift-off point

37.379, -84.979

Record number

2307021755-01

8 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS LMK, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 105 mph.

• Several trees a mile west of this loation on hwy 9
• Geode that didn't belong to the property landed on playground gravel and apparently split. Other piece landed on other side of playground.
• Approximate start location for the tornado in this row of trees.
• Inflow to the tornado knocked over several vegetable plants and lifted fencing material, pushing it to the ese.

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

An anomalously strong mid- and upper-level trough for early July was centered over the Plains and gradually moved eastward toward the Ohio Valley on July 1st and 2nd, 2023. A meandering surface frontal boundary gradually became more well defined throughout this period, with a warm front lifting through the Ohio Valley on July 1st before a series of remnant outflow boundaries and a convectively-enhanced cold frontal passage occurred July 2nd into the morning hours of July 3rd. Across central Kentucky and southern Indiana, there was ample fuel for convection, as temperatures in the mid-to-upper 80s and lower 90s and dewpoints in the low-to-mid 60s allowed for the development of over 2500 J/kg of mixed-layer CAPE. Since there was initially no predominant organizing feature for convection, multiple waves of showers and thunderstorms moved across the region on July 1st, producing intermittent instances of damaging straight-line winds and near-severe hail, primarily across southern Indiana. However, as the main trough and the surface cold front moved into the region on July 2nd, convection was better organized thanks to 40-45 knots of effective bulk shear in addition to moderate to high levels of instability. Convective development on July 2nd began during the early afternoon hours across southwestern Indiana and western Kentucky. Initially, convective mode was predominantly cellular, but cells gradually grew upscale through the afternoon into clusters and larger quasi-linear structures. Downdraft CAPE was over 1000 J/kg and significant hail parameter values exceeded 1 through most of the area; accordingly, strong to damaging winds and hail were the primary severe hazards observed during the afternoon and evening hours on July 2nd. However, there was just enough low-level helicity to facilitate the development of two weak tornadoes, one in Anderson County and the other in Casey County. Storms gradually subsided after sunset, with the severe threat ending across the region by midnight on July 3rd.

The National Weather Service conducted a storm survey of damage to a |property off of Wilson Ridge Road. There a well-built home with a metal roof |had its roof peeled off in the middle section of the home. In that same area, |an attached back porch awning was also lifted and completely detached from |the house. Some thick siding was removed from the home as well. Damage |in this area was consistent with an EF-1 tornado with winds of 100-105 mph. |The homeowner stated the damage occurred a little before eight o`clock, |which is important given multiple storms moving across the area over that hour. |Time that the tornado was on the ground was brief. Homeowner noted a small |gap in the tree line north of the house which we believe was the starting point. |Damage went downstream into a field of soybeans, but there was no apparent|path in the soybeans themselves.

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

20 minutes of warning. NWS LMK issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:35 UTC, 20 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:00 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 17:33 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, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:54 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 Louisville radar (KLVX), 108 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:52 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

8 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.