EF1 tornado, Hardin Spgs 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

11:24 PM EDT (03:24 UTC)

Lifted

11:28 PM EDT (03:28 UTC)

On the ground

4 minutes

Path length

4.0 miles (6.4 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Hardin County

Touchdown point

37.653, -86.211

Lift-off point

37.697, -86.168

Highest wind the damage implies

100 mph

Surveyed by

NWS LMK

The office's name for it

Hardin2

Survey last edited

April 3, 2026

Record number

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

There was a large forested area that was not easily reachable by the ground survey team between the end point of the first tornado and the starting point of this second tornado. A ground distance of 2.4 miles separated these two tracks. Satellite mutual aid helped confirm a clean break in the damage path.

The estimated starting point for the second tornado along this storm's track, per high resolution satellite imagery, was in a wooded area just west of Pierce Mill Rd 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 Rd. Downstream wooded areas showed evidence that the occluding tornado still caused damage before lifting southwest of Slaughter Rd. At that point the rear flank downdraft surged ahead and caused damage along a swath just east of this track.

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

139 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 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.

31 minutes of warning. NWS LMK issued a tornado warning for this county at 02:53 UTC, 31 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.

Elizabethtown (EKX), 23 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Louisville radar (KLVX), 40 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 03:25 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.