EF1 tornado, Ironville to Garner, Kentucky, April 2, 2024

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

April 2, 2024

Touchdown

10:21 AM EDT (14:21 UTC)

Lifted

10:23 AM EDT (14:23 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

1.1 miles (1.8 km)

Path width

250 yards (229 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$100,000

County

Boyd County

Touchdown point

38.456, -82.712

Lift-off point

38.458, -82.692

Record number

2404020821-01

59 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS RLX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 120 mph.

• Significant loss of roofing noted at the Laidback Bar and Grille. Significant tree damage with several travel trailers rolled over and destroyed.
• Drone snapshot shows trees on edges of track with convergence.
• Limbs snapped off with debris generally west of the parent tree. Back wall of lumber storage shed blown out to the east.
• Metal roofing panels peeled from building. Wall of block building was shifted some. Large hardwood tree with trunk decay evident also fell onto a structure.

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

A strong low pressure system and accompanying frontal boundary set forth multiple rounds of strong to severe thunderstorms from April 2nd to the 3rd. This first came in the form of an intense squall line on the morning of the 2nd, which raced through eastern Kentucky and produced straight-line wind damage and brief tornadoes. ||The strongest tornado surveyed in the aftermath of storms was found in Boyd County, with structure damage indicative of an EF2 tornado and maximum winds of up to 120 miles per hour. Another tornado was observed near the town of Westwood, where a single-wide trailer was flipped over and significant damage was noted of homes and structures. Numerous areas of tree and power line damage were also seen across northeast Kentucky due to damaging wind gusts associated with the squall line.||In addition to wind and tornado damage, heavy downpours associated with rounds of storms led to flooding across portions of northeast Kentucky on April 3rd. Several roads were closed during this time due to high water issues as adjacent creeks and streams rose out of their banks. In the span of these two days, between 3 to 5 inches of rain had fallen along the Ohio River basin from Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio, which eventually flowed down the river into Kentucky. The river gauge at Ashland eventually rose above its flood stage on April 6th and returned into its banks the next day as the water continued to flow downstream.

An EF1 tornado skipped along a path of straight-line wind damage likely beginning along Daniels Fork Road near the town of Westwood. The tornado then continued across State Route 5, moving eastward and crossing Rose Road and then ending at the top of the hill after crossing Pine Street. ||The most significant damage occurred along Rose Road. A single-wide trailer was flipped over, a section of a home was broken off from the rest of the structure and moved several feet, and several other homes and structures were significantly damaged.

An EF2 tornado with estimated maximum winds of up to 120 miles per hour took a northeasterly track down Long Branch Road. The tornado caused considerable and significant tree damage with several large hardwood trees snapped and uprooted. A home was severely damaged when the roof was blown off, and other homes also suffered at least minor damage. Several barns and outbuildings were destroyed. The tornado then crossed the ridge between Long Branch Road and Jacks Fork Road and turned east, skipping along the ridgetops causing additional tree damage before lifting.

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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 14:20 UTC and running to 17:00 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 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 12:32 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.

Ashland (DWU), 11 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Charleston,WV radar (KRLX), 87 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 14:22 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 2024 tornado in KentuckyEvery tornado in Kentucky since 1950Warnings in force in Kentucky nowThe forecast where you are

68 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 69 of them

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.