EF1 Tornado — Henry, Kentucky

2023-01-12 · near Pleasureville, Henry, Kentucky

Event narrative

The National Weather Service in Louisville conducted a storm survey near Pleasureville in Henry County for storms that occurred Thursday morning. The survey team determined the damage was consistent with an EF1 tornado with maximum winds of 110 mph.

The tornado first touched down on a farm about a mile west of Pleasureville along Hillspring Road (route 1359). A large barn had damage to doors and side walls, and the structural integrity of the building was compromised and leaning. Another nearby shed was completely removed from the foundation and destroyed. A two-by-four was protruding from the field that was thrown by the tornado to the southeast. The tornado continued east across Hillspring Road to another farm where a barn was completely destroyed. Debris from the barn was thrown 100 yards away to the east into a nearby field with debris lofted into the standing trees. Another two-by-four thrown by the tornado was observed to the north of the barn and protruding from the field.

The tornado continued east another mile into the town of Pleasureville along Williams Street and Main Street (State Route 241). Several trees were snapped and uprooted in this area, including some homes that had significant roof damage. One mobile home also received roof damage and was moved from the concrete foundational blocks. Mud splatter was observed on cars and homes in this area, ranging in the south to west directions. As the tornado crossed over Main Street, power lines were damaged and homes had more roof and tree damage. Several trees were uprooted with large branches snapped and twisted in varying directions.

The tornado likely dissipated just to the east of homes damaged along Main Street in Pleasureville. No observable damage was evident along Castle Highway (US Route 421) looking west.

Wider weather episode

During the morning hours of January 12th, an area of low pressure moved through the Ohio Valley downstream of an upper trough across the mid-Mississippi Valley. The initial wave of storms along a warm front moved across north central Kentucky and southern Indiana during the pre-dawn hours, bringing generally sub-severe hail with isolated quarter-sized hail reports. Storms along this boundary were not surface based, but were able to utilize 500-1000 J/kg MUCAPE via steep mid-level lapse rates to produce convection which was of sufficient depth and strength to produce hailstones. Wind shear was more than sufficient for sustaining convection throughout the event, with anywhere from 50-60 kt effective bulk shear across central Kentucky. The second wave of severe convection formed ahead of the surface cold front, moving from west to east across the region during the early and mid-morning hours as a broken quasi-linear convective system (QLCS). Modest destabilization occurred ahead of this second line of storms; however, the antecedent near-surface inversion was able to erode, contributing to the development of 200-500 J/kg of SBCAPE. As a result, severe impacts transitioned from predominantly elevated ones to surface-based threats. While scattered straight-line wind damage was initially the dominant severe impact, convection encountered a local maximum in 0-1 km storm-relative helicity as it crossed Interstate 65, with greater than 300 m2/s2 0-1 km SRH analyzed on SPC hourly mesoscale analysis. In addition, the segment of the QLCS which passed through the Bluegrass region had an orientation which was more perpendicular to the 0-3 km bulk shear vector, indicating a greater potential for embedded tornadoes. Accordingly, appendages and breaks within the QLCS produced several brief tornadoes across the area, with tornadoes being reported in Henry, Mercer, Boyle, and Madison Counties. The line continued to push into eastern Kentucky during the late morning hours, with the severe threat ending shortly thereafter.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (38.3529, -85.1327)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1075494. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.