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EF1 tornado in Breckinridge County, Kentucky

Tornado March 30, 2025 · Breckinridge County, Kentucky

EF1
Rating
2.5 mi
Path length
30 yd
Path width
EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 30 yards (0.02 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

The National Weather Service conducted a storm survey in Breckinridge County, near the communities of Hardinsburg and Harned, and determined an EF-1 tornado with maximum winds of 100 mph occurred the evening of March 30th, 2025. The tornado had a path length of 2.55 miles and a width of 30 yards.

The first damage that was observed was along Butler Hobbs Road where a barn had roof panels lifted off for most of the south facing side of the building. The tornado continued along Butler Hobbs Road where several trees had large branch damage. The

tornado then crossed Ephesus Church Road where another barn had roof panel loss. The most significant damage occurred along US Highway 60 near Harned where several barn buildings had significant roof damage on the east and southeast side of the

building, which was the direction that the tornado approached. A barn and garage outbuilding were completely destroyed with estimated max wind speeds of 100 mph. A nearby residence also had wind damage, but there was clear evidence that the tornado was loosing strength with winds at this location near 80 mph. After crossing US Highway 60, there was no additional observable damage from this tornado.

The wider storm

On March 30th, a surface low along with the system's cold front dropped southeast from eastern Iowa through southern Indiana and central Kentucky. This resulted in a northeast to southwest oriented line of convection ahead of the front. The added shear from the surface low resulted in organized storms that produced damaging winds and 5 tornadoes throughout north central Kentucky. Wind damage continued farther east into the Bluegrass region, near Lexington.

Began near Harned (37.7645, -86.4250).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 1246578. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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