EF3 Tornado — Hopkins, Kentucky

2013-11-17 · near Romney, Hopkins, Kentucky

Event narrative

The tornado touched down a couple of miles southwest of Nortonville, then proceeded east across the Pennyrile Parkway. Four homes were destroyed, including one double wide mobile home. The mobile home was blown about 75 yards before coming to rest against trees. The exterior walls of a permanent home collapsed. A dozen homes received minor to moderate damage. Several sheds and barns were destroyed. Hundreds of trees, some of which were very large, were snapped and uprooted. There was one minor injury. Peak winds were estimated near 140 mph. The most intense damage occurred about two miles south-southeast of Nortonville. This tornado was spawned by a supercell that originated over southeast Missouri and produced a 42-mile long EF-3 tornado from the Paducah area to Lyon County, Kentucky.

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 → (37.1533, -87.4898)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 480994. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.