EF0 tornado, Breckinridge to Cynthiana, Kentucky, June 18, 2026

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

   Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

2. EF186 to 110 mph

   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, as surveyed

EF0, preliminary

Date

June 18, 2026

Touchdown

4:33 AM EDT (08:33 UTC)

Lifted

4:34 AM EDT (08:34 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.6 miles (1.0 km)

Path width

80 yards (73 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Harrison County

Touchdown point

38.397, -84.352

Lift-off point

38.398, -84.342

Highest wind the damage implies

85 mph

Surveyed by

NWS LMK

The office's name for it

Harrison KY

Survey last edited

June 23, 2026

Record number

None yet. SPC numbers 2026 in the spring of 2027.

13 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS LMK, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 85 mph.

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

A Mesoscale Convective System moved across the Ohio Valley on the night of June 17th, 2026 and the morning of June 18th, 2026. Supercells congealed into a line of storms as it moved south into southern Indiana and northern Kentucky. These storms brought severe winds and a few tornadoes to the area. Additionally, long residence time of heavy rainfall lead to flash flooding that lasted through most of the day on June 18th, 2026.

A National Weather Service damage survey concluded that a brief EF-0 touched down early on the morning of Thursday June 18th, 2026. The brief spin-up tornado was embedded within a larger swath of sporadic straight-line wind damage, and touched down about 3 miles due west of Cynthiana between Mill Creek and Mill Creek Meadows Drive. Here, some tree damage as well as roof damage to a metal barn were sustained. Winds were estimated to be 80 mph with this damage. The tornado then traveled east of Mill Creek Meadows Drive toward Ammerman Pike doing more tree damage and scattering some roofing material from the upstream barn. At Ammerman Pike and|Highway 356, another metal barn sustained roof damage and had side panels blown out, along with some roof and fascia damage to a home. A large softwood tree was also uprooted here. Peak winds at this location were rated at 85 mph as the tornado made a hard northward turn and dissipated north of the Highway 356 and Ammerman Pike intersection. The tornado was on the ground for 1 minute or less and traveled less than three quarters of a mile. Peak width was estimated at 80 yards wide.

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 02:13 UTC and running to 08:44 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 Marginal Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 05:49 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 Cincinnati radar (KILN), 122 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 08:33 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 2026 tornado in KentuckyEvery tornado in Kentucky since 1950Warnings in force in Kentucky nowThe forecast where you are

50 more have been surveyed in the United States that day, so far.

Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. A survey can be revised, so the rating, the path and the casualties can all still change.

NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit, the record the survey teams file from the damage, and NOAA Storm Prediction Center storm reports. Neither is the official database for 2026, which SPC publishes in the spring of 2027.