EF1 Tornado — Taylor, Kentucky

2022-01-01 · near Lorain, Taylor, Kentucky

Event narrative

This confirmed tornado was a continuation of the parent circulation that caused the tornado southwest of Olmstead KY that crossed the Todd/Logan county line. After a gap of more than 2 miles, the tornado redeveloped and caused damage along Watermelon Road. Minor roof damage occurred near this location. The tornado continued along JB Shackelford Road in mostly rural open farm fields before damage occurred along Johnson Young Road (Route 739). Several trees had large limbs down, and a hardwood tree was uprooted nearby. The strongest damage occurred as a nearby barn was completely demolished with estimated wind speeds at 110 mph for strong EF-1 winds.

The tornado then turned to the northeast causing minor damage to a porch covering at BL Shackelford Road. Damage continued toward Williams Store where significant tree damage occurred with several large trees either snapped or had large branches broken. The tornado then crossed rural areas west of Nashville Road (Highway 431).

At Nashville Road, a barn had roof damage observed with another outbuilding shifted off the foundation. At this point, the tornado appeared to strengthen with consistent damage just north of Ellis Road. A barn had a silo completely destroyed with major damage to 2 other silos, and drone footage confirmed several trees uprooted with branches snapped beyond this barn. The tornado then did some damage along Ellis road with roof damage observed at another barn.

An isolated tree snap occurred near the junction of Franklin Road (route 100) and Airport Road before the tornado crossed rural fields near the Russellville-Logan County Airport. The tornado continued to the northeast with damage observed to the west of Dennis Corinth Road to trees and barns.

Wider weather episode

During New Year's Eve into New Year's Day, active weather was observed across Kentucky as several waves of low pressure moved along a frontal boundary that was stalled across the region. This resulted in multiple rounds of widespread precipitation, and rainfall amounts of 2 to 4 inches with locally higher amounts observed across the area. As the boundary lifted north as a warm front New Year's Day, strong to severe storms were able to develop within the warm sector ahead of an approaching cold front, with multiple tornadoes and scattered straight-line wind damage being observed.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (37.3730, -85.3850)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1004316. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.