EF1 tornado, Flaherty, Kentucky, May 26, 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

May 26, 2024

Touchdown

11:11 PM EDT (03:11 UTC)

Lifted

11:12 PM EDT (03:12 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

1.6 miles (2.5 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Meade County

Touchdown point

37.852, -86.021

Lift-off point

37.854, -85.992

Record number

2405262111-01

6 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 93 mph.

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

A strong storm system moved across the Ohio and Tennessee valleys on May 26th and into the early morning hours of May 27th, 2024. Two waves of strong to severe thunderstorms moved across central Kentucky, producing numerous occurrences of straight-line wind damage and 8 tornadoes while crossing the region. The first wave of storms moved across central Kentucky as a large bowing quasi-linear convective system during the late morning and early afternoon hours. This line of storms produced widespread straight-line wind damage, with particularly heavy damage observed across the Louisville metro and northern Woodford County. Two quick spin up tornadoes in Clinton County were also associated with this line.||After a second sub-severe line of storms moved across the area during the early afternoon hours, conditions were relatively quiet until the mid-to-late afternoon, when strong and severe cells began to develop across western Kentucky and southern Illinois. The storms would initially be discrete before growing into another large line of storms which produced the heaviest damage south of Interstate 64. Six tornadoes would be associated with this second line, with a long track EF1 tornado extending for over 40 miles across Muhlenberg, Butler, and Warren County. Heavy straight-line wind damage was also observed with this second line of storms, especially in Barren, Mercer, and Garrard County. The line of storms finally pushed east of the area shortly after midnight on May 27th, bringing an end to an active 16 hours across central Kentucky.

A National Weather Service Louisville storm survey confirmed an EF1 tornado|just north of Vine Grove. The tornado touched down off Fort |Avenue near Browning Drive. There was some twisting of cedar trees, |topping of maple trees, and one uprooted black walnut tree. |Trees were facing from a northerly direction to an east |southeasterly direction. Wind speeds were estimated to be between |80 and 85 mph, EF0, with a width of 100 yards in this area. ||The tornado increased in strength near Knox Avenue with trees |topped and uprooted. A one story house had a large section of its |roof ripped off. Debris from the house was thrown from the east |southeast all the way to the north northeast. Drone photography |was instrumental in determining it was a tornado. Wind speeds were |estimated to be 90 mph, EF1, with a width of 150 yards. ||The tornado produced very sporadic tree damage, and lifted before|reaching Hardin County.

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 tornado watch, issued at 23:55 UTC and running to 03:48 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 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 00:57 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), 15 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 03:12 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

69 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 70 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.