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EF1 tornado in Ballard County, Kentucky

Tornado April 4, 2011 · Ballard County, Kentucky

EF1

Rating

3.7 mi

Path length

200 yd

Path width

$40K

Damage as recorded

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 200 yards (0.11 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

Two barns were levelled on Highway 1345. Numerous trees were snapped or uprooted. Peak winds were estimated near 90 mph. Average path width was about 175 yards.

The wider storm

Thunderstorms gradually intensified along and ahead of a cold front from Arkansas into western Kentucky. The storms occurred in a moist and strongly sheared environment, resulting in a combination of line segments and supercells which evolved into a quasi-linear convective system. There were isolated tornadoes, along with a couple small swaths of damaging winds.

Began near Slater (36.9944, -89.0120).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

EF2 Christian County EF2 Ballard County EF1 Muhlenberg County EF0 McCracken County

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 288324. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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