EF1 tornado, Renick to Becknerville, 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

9:30 AM EDT (13:30 UTC)

Lifted

9:33 AM EDT (13:33 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

1.9 miles (3.1 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Clark County

Touchdown point

37.975, -84.306

Lift-off point

37.959, -84.281

Record number

2404020730-01

95 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 110 mph.

• EM reports barn damage with several horses injured that needed emergency surgery, including one in critical condition.
• Several trees in tgis area.
• Southern extent of damage path
• Two by four impaled into roof. Alrrady fixed.

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

As a surface low cut across Missouri and Illinois, its eastward stretching warm front moved north across central Indiana while its cold front moved east towards the Lower Ohio Valley. This placed central Kentucky in the warm sector, where 3 separate lines of convection moved through during the day. The first line of storms generating from an early morning outflow boundary dropped southeast through the area. This produced six tornadoes, mainly through the Bluegrass region. The second line, moving west to east, just produced some passing showers and thunderstorms. The third line, just ahead of the cold front, moved through during the evening hours. This produced three more tornadoes along the Interstate 71 corridor. One of these tornadoes began in Clark County, Indiana before crossing the Ohio River into Kentucky.

After exiting Bourbon County, the tornado continued southeast to a large property off the 6700 block of Paris Rd, in far north Clark County. The home had several older healthy trees near the home downed as well as a barn demolished. A very old|stone cabin downwind of the home escaped damage, likely because of the upstream trees and the home structure. Some additional tree damage occurred along Pretty Run Rd. The tornado last caused damage to a large new barn in Wades Mill area before lifting. In total, the EF1 tornado covered 13.44 miles after beginning near Bethlehem Road in Bourbon County and ending in Clark County.

Tornado damage appeared to have started to a barn and some trees across a field from each other west of Combs Ferry Road. The tornado continued southeast towards homes on a family's property. Trees were downed here with some outfieldings' roofs damaged.|Residents of one home said a set of 2nd story windows popped out and fell to the ground. Another nearby resident said all the interior doors of their home opened up as the tornado passed by. A security camera video showed a white intense area of rainfall|moving across the property in an area where a row of trees ended up getting snapped. The tornado continued east southeastward toward a home near the intersection of Jones Nursery Road and Combs Ferry Road. The resident was in a nearby attached garage when it went through. He witnessed the rains going in one direction before the tornado hit and then switch quickly to a different direction behind it. One section of the main home's roof was completely taken off and thrown east southeast. The wind hit the west-facing garage doors flush, causing both doors to buckle but not collapse. The brick work in between the doors was buckled as well. No further damage was noted southeast of this property, so the tornado appeared to have lifted by this point. There were several trees downed on the south side of the tornado, likely with strong inflow winds. Jones Nursery Road had trees down all along the road, but most of the damage had been cleaned up before the survey occurred.

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 10:59 UTC and running to 14:58 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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.15 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.

Lexington/Bluegrass (LEX), 29 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), 96 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 13:31 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.