EF1 Tornado — Fulton, Kentucky

2025-11-18 · near Dodd, Fulton, Kentucky

Event narrative

A narrow EF-1 tornado (peak winds of 100mph) began on KY-94 just east of Hickman. The tornado then slowly moved southeast, mostly across open fields, doing sporadic minor tree damage before snapping 3 power poles along and near KY-166. The tornado ended near Rice Lane south of KY-166. Photos from the event show a very narrow funnel consistent with the narrow damage path.

Wider weather episode

A surface low drifted southeastward from Missouri through Southern Illinois and Western Kentucky during the evening hours of the 18th. Areas to the south with some afternoon clearing allowed for instability to develop, resulting in the formation of multiple clusters of storms that tracked southeastward. The most prominent of these clusters strengthened in far Southeast Missouri, moving across the Mississippi River into far Western Kentucky, at times developing embedded supercell structure. This cluster produced a tornado in Fulton County which tracked southeastward from KY-94 to KY-166 near the Tennessee border, breaking multiple power polls along the way. Effective bulk shear peaked at around 50kts near the Missouri/Kentucky border with DCAPE of 800J/kg to go along with the MLCAPE of over 1000J/kg. Precipitable water peaked at 1.3in.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (36.5644, -89.1367)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1299878. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.