EF1 tornado in Clinton County, Kentucky

The National Weather Service conducted a storm survey on Wednesday, March 18th for the storms that occurred early Monday morning, March 16th. A tornado was determined to have occurred in Clinton County with max winds of 100 MPH (EF1).

Storm damage was first observed along Wright Parish Road southwest of Albany near Wolf River Dock Road. A line of cedar trees had extensive damage, with several treetops and branches pointing to the north, east, and opposite of the northeast storm

motion to the southwest. Some branches showed signs of being ripped and twisted from the trees as well, which was indicative of rotation from a tornado.

The tornado continued uphill to a nearby residence with several outbuildings. One barn was completely moved from the foundation with roof damage lofted into nearby fields. The damage direction was mainly to the east, pointing toward the tornadic circulation

that was moving to the northeast. Another section of barn damage was pointing to the north, indicating the right side of the circulation nearby. A drone flight confirmed this information. A nearby residence had awning damage that was moved to the northeast, with the most notable damage being a couple of wood plank impalements that were driven into the ground facing the opposite direction of the storm motion to the southwest. The max wind speed near this damage along Rice Road and Wolf River Dock

Road was 100 mph.

The tornado continued to the northeast and damage to trees and outbuildings occurred along Hay Road, Huntersville Road, and Robert Page Road. Several trees were snapped and a barn was leveled, and the convergent signature of the tree damage to the

north and east directions were noted. The tornado continued northeast along Robert Page Road where a residence had roof and siding damage that was lofted to the northeast away from the property. The debris went up to US Highway 127, and no other

damage was observable past this point.

During the late evening and overnight hours March 15th into March 16th, a strong upper level trough and associated cold front moved across the Ohio Valley. Ahead of the cold front, temperatures were in the 70s with dew point temperatures in the upper 50s and low 60s. This corridor of modest low-level destabilization contained between 250 and 500 J/kg of MLCAPE which was oriented immediately ahead of the surface front and the main line of showers and thunderstorms. With a corridor of 80 knot mid-level winds approaching from the west, effective bulk shear was between 40 and 50 knots for this event, creating a typical high-shear, low-CAPE setup for central Kentucky and southern Indiana. While the primary forcing mechanism was lifting along the cold front, resulting in a quasi-linear convective system, some scattered cells developed ahead of the main line of storms across western Kentucky. These storms had transient supercellular characteristics, and would go on to produce a swath of stronger winds and a few embedded tornadoes across Butler, Grayson, Breckinridge, Hardin, and Meade County. Elsewhere across Kentucky, scattered wind damage was produced by the main line of storms, with more favorably oriented segments of the line producing additional weak spin-up tornadoes. As the line of storms pushed east toward the I-75 corridor early in the morning on March 16th, there was a general weakening trend as MLCAPE values dropped to only around 100 J/kg across the Bluegrass. However, the portion of the line across southern Kentucky had access to slightly greater instability, resulting in additional instances of wind damage and a spin-up tornado in Clinton County. The line of storms eventually pushed into eastern Kentucky by around 3 AM on March 16th, with much cooler air rushing into the region behind the cold front.