EF1 tornado, Fairdale to Coral Ridge, Kentucky, March 30, 2025

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

March 30, 2025

Touchdown

9:48 PM EDT (01:48 UTC)

Lifted

9:54 PM EDT (01:54 UTC)

On the ground

6 minutes

Path length

5.4 miles (8.7 km)

Path width

30 yards (27 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

1

County

Jefferson County

Touchdown point

38.098, -85.768

Lift-off point

38.092, -85.672

Record number

2503301948-01

63 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.

• Couple of uprooted trees. Structure nearby no damage
• Lifted up part of road. Power lines drooping here.
• Some trees and power lines here slight home roof dmg
• Camper slightly moved off blocks. Roof dmg. Several trees snapped here.

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

On March 30th, a surface low along with the system's cold front dropped southeast from eastern Iowa through southern Indiana and central Kentucky. This resulted in a northeast to southwest oriented line of convection ahead of the front. The added shear from the surface low resulted in organized storms that produced damaging winds and 5 tornadoes throughout north central Kentucky. Wind damage continued farther east into the Bluegrass region, near Lexington.

The National Weather Service conducted a storm survey for south Louisville near the Fairdale community and determined an EF-1 tornado with maximum winds of 100 mph occurred the evening of March 30th, 2025. The tornado had a path length of 5.43 miles and a width of 30 yards. ||Minor tree damage and structural damage was observed just south of the Gene Snyder Freeway off the Stonestreet exit along Bear Camp road and Blevins Gap Road and was determined to be straight line wind damage. The first observable tornado damage was along Mitchell Hill Road and Keys Ferry Road near Fairdale Elementary School. Large branches were snapped and twisted in varying directions within the tree, as well as trees snapped with a rolled shed nearby. Some of the most notable damage occurred near a few homes along Mitchell Hill Road, where several trees were twisted, uprooted, and snapped. Winds in this location were determined to have been between 85 and 100 mph. An injury was reported to have happened to a resident in this vicinity, where a man was trying to hold a door closed when the wind was strong and hurt his arm.||The tornado continued across Mitchell Hill Road across neighborhoods where several properties observed tree damage and fence damage. The most notable damage was to a garage that was moved off a foundation with estimated wind speeds of 97 mph. The |tornado continued across Mount Holly Road and did damage near a church. A garage lost roofing material and it was lofted into nearby trees. Pockets of tree damage occurred along Wilson Creek and continued near Holly Avenue. Damage occurred to a garage barn where much of the building was destroyed and several wood planks |were impaled in the back and front of a nearby residence. ||The tornado continued across the National Turnpike roadway and impacted a brick one story residence, where the tornado hit with such force that the brick was damaged and the windows were broken out of the home. Portions of the roof were lofted well into the |distance, including the garage barn behind the property. Estimated wind speeds of 100 mph occurred at this location. The tornado continued across South Park Road where garage damage was observed and twisted large branches in trees. The tornado continued eastward where several trees and structure damage was observed |along Barricks Road (just south of Hillview Drive) where the tornado continued to produce estimated wind speeds of between 90 and 100 mph.||Across I-65 the tornado worked into an industrial park between Blue Lick Rd and Preston Hwy south of Interchange Dr. There were a few trees damaged with one notable tree that was split with the large branches blown to the west of the tree. There were visible marks on the ground where the branches had landed and dragged |across the ground for about 3 to 4 feet towards the west after hitting the ground. Wind speeds were between 60 and 75 mph in these locations, and no observable damage was seen beyond this point.

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

4 minutes of warning. NWS LMK issued a tornado warning for this county at 01:44 UTC, 4 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 02:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 22:46 UTC and running to 03:31 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 00:51 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.

Louisville Intl (SDF), 9 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Louisville radar (KLVX), 24 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:48 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 2025 tornado in KentuckyEvery tornado in Kentucky since 1950Warnings in force in Kentucky nowThe forecast where you are

42 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.