EF0 tornado in Lyon County, Kentucky

The weak tornado crossed Kentucky Lake from Marshall County and entered Lyon County in the Land-Between-The-Lakes National Recreation Area. The apparent damage path ended at the Twin Lakes campground, which is along the Kentucky Lake shore about two miles south of the canal between Lake Barkley and Kentucky Lake. Numerous campers were destroyed, and trees were downed. Peak winds in Lyon County were estimated near 80 mph. Witnesses in the area reported seeing funnel clouds.

A couple of lines of thunderstorms moved northeast across far western Kentucky during the late afternoon and evening hours. The first line consisted of semi-discrete cells, one of which was associated with a weak tornado that tracked across the Kentucky Lake area. The second line was associated with a few isolated marginally severe wind gusts to 60 mph. The storms developed in response to a rather amplified 500 mb shortwave trough that progressed east into Iowa and Missouri by nightfall. With daytime heating, the atmosphere became very unstable in the afternoon. Mixed-layer capes were around 3000 j/kg late in the day. A belt of 35 to 45 knot mid-level west-southwesterly winds resulted in sufficient deep-layer wind shear for organized storm structures. An embedded tornado occurred in the vicinity of a residual outflow boundary arcing west from storms over central Kentucky.