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EF1 tornado in Greenup County, Kentucky

Tornado April 2, 2024 · Greenup County, Kentucky

EF1
Rating
7.9 mi
Whole path
250 yd
Path width
1
Injury
$2.1M
Damage as recorded

NOAA records this tornado county by county. Its path ran through Greenup County → Lawrence County, Ohio; the totals above are for the whole tornado.

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 250 yards (0.14 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF1 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF1 is moderate damage: roofs badly stripped, mobile homes pushed off foundations or overturned, windows broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 86–110 mph. The rating comes from a survey of the worst damage after the storm, not from a wind measurement, so it says as much about what the tornado hit as about how strong it was.

What the National Weather Service wrote

A broken path of damage was noted on the Kentucky side of the tornado track, beginning at the Riverview Cemetery west of Greenup. Additional damage occurred on Seaton Avenue near South 5th Street and in the Greenup Fairgrounds, where a few buildings suffered roof damage and a large tree fell onto another building. The tornado then likely tracked along the Ohio River before intersecting land again on the Kentucky side and causing roof and tree damage to several homes along Calumet Drive.

The wider storm

A strong low pressure system and accompanying frontal boundary set forth multiple rounds of strong to severe thunderstorms from April 2nd to the 3rd. This first came in the form of an intense squall line on the morning of the 2nd, which raced through eastern Kentucky and produced straight-line wind damage and brief tornadoes.

The strongest tornado surveyed in the aftermath of storms was found in Boyd County, with structure damage indicative of an EF2 tornado and maximum winds of up to 120 miles per hour. Another tornado was observed near the town of Westwood, where a single-wide trailer was flipped over and significant damage was noted of homes and structures. Numerous areas of tree and power line damage were also seen across northeast Kentucky due to damaging wind gusts associated with the squall line.

In addition to wind and tornado damage, heavy downpours associated with rounds of storms led to flooding across portions of northeast Kentucky on April 3rd. Several roads were closed during this time due to high water issues as adjacent creeks and streams rose out of their banks. In the span of these two days, between 3 to 5 inches of rain had fallen along the Ohio River basin from Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio, which eventually flowed down the river into Kentucky. The river gauge at Ashland eventually rose above its flood stage on April 6th and returned into its banks the next day as the water continued to flow downstream.

Began near Greenup (38.5713, -82.8390).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

2 more tornadoes the National Weather Service filed under this storm episode.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 1168165. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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