EF1 tornado, Sullivan, 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

5:46 AM CDT (10:46 UTC)

Lifted

5:47 AM CDT (10:47 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.7 miles (1.2 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

1

Property damage

$130,000

County

Union County

Touchdown point

37.494, -87.949

Lift-off point

37.494, -87.936

Record number

2404020446-01

11 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 105 mph.

• Tree fell onto manufactured home and injured occupant. Tree was rotted slightly inside.

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

Early morning, the surface low was located just north of St. Louis, Missouri, lifting to the NNE as it rapidly deepened. For Western Kentucky, early morning effective bulk shear was 60 kts, with a very high 30 kts of 0-1 km shear, while SRHs near the Ohio River were around 200 m2/s2. MLCAPE was 1000-1500 J/kg, and mid-level lapse rates were 7 C/km. A 70-90 kt mid-level jet was west of the Quad State. A strong capping inversion suppressed storm activity in the evening, but the strong lift and upper level diffluence won out early morning. Two lines of storms developed after midnight in Southeast Missouri. The latter was a very potent thunderstorm line racing eastward early morning April 2nd with the southern end of the line of severe weather just over the Ohio River in Western Kentucky. Weaker thunderstorm activity occurred further south in the southern Jackson Purchase and most of the Pennyrile. This line continued throughout the day all the way to West Virginia, being designated a derecho. For Western Kentucky, 4 tornadoes occurred, 1 in far Western McCracken County (EF-1), and 3 in Union County (1 EF-2, 2 EF-1), with 1 injury due to a tree falling on a manufactured home from the Sullivan tornado in Union County. According to county EMA, in Union County, 22 homes were damaged, with 8 destroyed and 3 suffering major damage. A few instances of straight-line wind damage also occurred in counties bordering the Ohio River (Ballard, McCracken, and Union).

An EF-1 tornado struck near the community of Sullivan in southern Union County during the early morning hours. The tornado began near the intersection of US Hwy 60 and Sullivan Road, where a large farm outbuilding was severely damaged. After passing through a farm field, the tornado did roof damage to two homes on Cowan Road. Further east along KY-109, the tornado snapped several large trees at their base. One tree fell onto a double-wide manufactured home, where falling debris struck and injured the head of its occupant. The tornado dissipated very shortly thereafter. Peak winds were estimated at 105 mph.

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

20 minutes of warning. NWS PAH issued a tornado warning for this county at 10:26 UTC, 20 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 11:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 07:12 UTC and running to 11:21 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 Slight 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 06:00 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.

The Paducah radar (KPAH), 87 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 10:43 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.