EF1 tornado, Post to Vine Grove, Kentucky, March 15, 2026

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, as surveyed

EF1, preliminary

Date

March 15, 2026

Touchdown

10:04 PM CDT (03:04 UTC)

Lifted

10:22 PM CDT (03:22 UTC)

On the ground

18 minutes

Path length

17.8 miles (28.6 km)

Path width

300 yards (274 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Counties

Grayson and Hardin counties

Touchdown point

37.461, -86.470

Lift-off point

37.624, -86.235

Highest wind the damage implies

110 mph

Surveyed by

NWS LMK

The office's name for it

GraysonBreckinridgeHardin

Survey last edited

April 3, 2026

Record number

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

After extensive aerial data sets were captured as well as additional reports of damage given by Hardin, Meade, Breckinridge, and Grayson County Emergency Management, an update is being made to the previous 43.75 mile long track tornado. This update will break the previously reported track up into 3 separate tornadoes as well as 2 separate areas of straight-lined wind damage. NWS GIS Mutual Aid, using high-resolution satellite imagery, was provided by Tyler Stanfield of the National Weather Service Slidell, LA, forecast office. The U.S. Coast Guard eagerly provided drone imagery over portions of the tracks in Hardin County. Much thanks goes to both Tyler and the USCG for their help finding breaks in the track over some areas that were very hard to get to!

The first report of the tornado came from Caneyville Fire Department of a tornado touchdown observed north of Caneyville. Damage was observed from high resolution satellite data north of Caneyville with tree damage near Highway 79 to near Choncie Lee Road. The tornado continued along Hopewell Road in Grayson County near the Caneyville and Millwood areas. Several farm outbuildings had the roof peeled off, with one farm having wood planks from the barn damage thrusted into the nearby residence. The residence also had shingle damage. Max winds of 100 mph were estimated in this location.

The tornado continued to the northeast across Jones Hill and highway 54 to Stones Chapel Road. Several farm outbuildings and tree damage was observed, including roof material lofted into nearby trees. The tornado continued across Clifty Church Drive where a farm had damage to several outbuildings where rooftops were destroyed. At this location, 3 head of cattle were fatally injured resulting in roughly $7K in damages. Debris from the farm was lofted into the treeline about a tenth of a mile from the property.

The tornado continued to the northeast toward Lilac where several farm outbuildings on a hill top were completely destroyed. Wood planks were driven into the ground in several directions and debris was lofted over the nearby hill. Significant tree damage was observed here as well. Max estimated wind speeds of 110 mph were observed here.

The tornado continued to the northeast toward Brandenburg road where trees were uprooted. The tornado crossed Rough River Lake several times, causing some structural and tree damage into Breckinridge County. It crossed near the triple point of Grayson, Breckinridge, and Hardin counties and into Hardin near Hardin Springs where several trees were uprooted and snapped. Per high resolution satellite imagery the first tornado ended just northeast of Hardin Springs and just east of Mount Olive Rd.

Written by NWS LMK in the NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit. A survey is revised as better evidence arrives.

129 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.

• Estimated end point per GIS Mutual Aid.
• EM relayed picture of outbuilding with over half roof torn off. Additional pictures of trees uprooted or damaged in the area. Another pic of a snapped tree falling into an outbuilding.
• EM picture of a tree that fell on a house.
• Picture of some minor metal roof damage.

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

During the late evening and overnight hours March 15th into March 16th, a strong upper level trough and associated cold front moved across the Ohio Valley. Ahead of the cold front, temperatures were in the 70s with dew point temperatures in the upper 50s and low 60s. This corridor of modest low-level destabilization contained between 250 and 500 J/kg of MLCAPE which was oriented immediately ahead of the surface front and the main line of showers and thunderstorms. With a corridor of 80 knot mid-level winds approaching from the west, effective bulk shear was between 40 and 50 knots for this event, creating a typical high-shear, low-CAPE setup for central Kentucky and southern Indiana. While the primary forcing mechanism was lifting along the cold front, resulting in a quasi-linear convective system, some scattered cells developed ahead of the main line of storms across western Kentucky. These storms had transient supercellular characteristics, and would go on to produce a swath of stronger winds and a few embedded tornadoes across Butler, Grayson, Breckinridge, Hardin, and Meade County. Elsewhere across Kentucky, scattered wind damage was produced by the main line of storms, with more favorably oriented segments of the line producing additional weak spin-up tornadoes. As the line of storms pushed east toward the I-75 corridor early in the morning on March 16th, there was a general weakening trend as MLCAPE values dropped to only around 100 J/kg across the Bluegrass. However, the portion of the line across southern Kentucky had access to slightly greater instability, resulting in additional instances of wind damage and a spin-up tornado in Clinton County. The line of storms eventually pushed into eastern Kentucky by around 3 AM on March 16th, with much cooler air rushing into the region behind the cold front.

The first report of the tornado came from Caneyville Fire Department of a tornado touchdown observed north of Caneyville. Damage was observed from high resolution satellite data north of Caneyville with tree damage near Highway 79 to near Choncie Lee Road. The tornado continued along Hopewell Road in Grayson County near the Caneyville and Millwood areas. Several farm outbuildings had the roof peeled off, with one farm having wood planks from the barn damage thrusted into the nearby residence. The residence also had shingle damage. Max winds of 100 mph were estimated in this location.||The tornado continued to the northeast across Jones Hill and highway 54 to Stones Chapel Road. Several farm outbuildings and tree damage was observed, including roof material lofted into nearby trees. The tornado continued across Clifty Church Drive |where a farm had damage to several outbuildings where rooftops were destroyed. At this location, 3 head of cattle were fatally injured resulting in roughly $7K in damages. Debris from the farm was lofted into the treeline about a tenth of a mile from the |property. ||The tornado continued to the northeast toward Lilac where several farm outbuildings on a hill top were completely destroyed. Wood planks were driven into the ground in several directions and debris was lofted over the nearby hill. Significant tree damage |was observed here as well. Max estimated wind speeds of 110 mph were observed here.||The tornado continued to the northeast toward Brandenburg Road where trees were uprooted. The tornado crossed Rough River Lake several times, causing some structural and tree damage into Breckinridge County.

As the tornado continued along Rough River Lake, a few branches were broken.

The tornado uprooted trees as it moved along Rough River Lake.

The tornado continued to do tree damage before it crossed near the triple point of Grayson, Breckinridge, and Hardin counties and into Hardin County.

The tornado entered the county near Hardin Springs where several trees were uprooted and snapped. Per high resolution satellite imagery the tornado ended just northeast of Hardin Springs and just east of Mount Olive Rd.

The estimated starting point for the tornado along this storm's track, per high resolution satellite imagery, was in a wooded area just west of Pierce Mill Road south of Garfield. Significant damage occurred to a home near Pierce Mill Road, where a portion of the roof was taken from the home above the garage and living space below. Mud splatter occurred to the front of the home at this location, and a wood plank was thrown backward into the roof above the living room. Several wood pieces were impaled into the ground at the property. ||The tornado continued north northeast, causing damage in a forested area that opened up into Horn Cemetery. It then caused structural damage along Constantine Road. Downstream wooded areas showed evidence that the occluding tornado still caused damage before lifting southwest of Slaughter Road. At that point the rear flank downdraft surged ahead and caused damage along a swath just east of this track.

Per high resolution satellite imagery of damage in a heavily forested area, a new tornado track began just near the intersection of Hardinsburg Rd and Fields Rd. This track briefly crossed Saint John Rd, but missed any structures there before entering another forested area. The first structural damage along this path was along Tyson Ln near Brizendine Ln where a barn hit the threshold of visible damage. Another open air barn along Brizendine Ln had its roof thrown into a wooded area west of the barn. A little farther downstream towards New Salem Church Rd there was additional structural damage.

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

11 minutes of warning. NWS LMK issued a tornado warning for this county at 02:53 UTC, 11 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 03:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 00:27 UTC and running to 04:23 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 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 00:43 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), 60 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 03:06 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

43 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.