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EF1 tornado in Ballard County, Kentucky

Tornado April 23, 2011 · Ballard County, Kentucky

EF1

Rating

1.6 mi

Path length

80 yd

Path width

$100K

Damage as recorded

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 80 yards (0.05 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

Part of a metal wall was damaged at a maintenance building. The roof was blown off a storage building at the city hall. Three power poles were snapped, which cut power to the city water plant. There was roof damage to a barn. A large tree fell on a home and two mobile homes. A carport landed up in a tree. There was minor roof damage on two homes and a carport. Several large trees were uprooted and snapped. Peak winds were estimated near 100 mph. The average path width was 65 yards.

The wider storm

Bands of thunderstorms developed along a surface cold front extending from northern Arkansas northeastward along the Ohio River. Relatively strong diurnal heating occurred south of the front, where mixed-layer cape values increased to around 1500 j/kg. Steep mid-level lapse rates and rather strong deep-layer wind shear promoted a few supercell structures within these bands of storms.

Began near Barlow (37.0500, -89.0554).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

1 more tornado the National Weather Service filed under this storm episode.

EF2 Carlisle County

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 289999. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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