EF3 Tornado — Union, Kentucky

2013-11-17 · near Chapman, Union, Kentucky

Event narrative

The tornado began just northwest of Morganfield, then tracked north of and parallel to U.S. Highway 60. A church roof was lifted and blown sideways. There were numerous homes with roof damage and some substantial structural damage. One home sustained total roof loss. Numerous hardwood trees were snapped or uprooted, some of which were very large. Several barns and outbuildings were destroyed. One mobile home slid off its foundation. Another mobile home disintegrated, with no walls, flooring, or roofing found. The steel I-beam undercarriage was twisted. A large metal storage building was destroyed. The steel I-beams supporting the roof were twisted. This metal building, about a mile north of Waverly, is where the most intense damage was located. Peak winds were estimated near 145 mph. There were several visual sightings of the tornado by trained spotters, along with video. The tornado continued across the Henderson County line into the Corydon area.

Wider weather episode

Clusters of supercell thunderstorms moved rapidly east around 50 knots across western Kentucky during the afternoon. Some of these storms produced tornadoes. Low level wind shear was very strong, with 0 to 1 km bulk shear near 50 knots. This shear was present amidst decent instability for late fall, with mixed-layer capes of 500 to 1000 j/kg. One supercell cluster moved east from the Paducah area along the Western Kentucky Parkway. The other supercell cluster moved east across the far northwest counties of Kentucky, passing south of Evansville and then across the Owensboro area. The storms initiated over Missouri along a pre-frontal low pressure trough, then moved east across the Lower Ohio Valley. Strong southerly surface winds ahead of the storms gusted up to 50 mph during the early morning hours. An off-duty meteorologist measured a gust to 50 mph in Calvert City in Marshall County.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (37.7006, -87.9403)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 480965. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.