Evansville Tornado (2005): path map, rating and deaths

Evansville Tornado (2005)

Tornado November 6, 2005 · Henderson County, Kentucky

Rating

41.3 mi

Whole path

400 yd

Path width

Deaths

238

Injuries

$87.3M

Damage as recorded

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 400 yards (0.23 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What F3 means. This tornado was rated on Fujita’s original scale, used until 2007. F3 meant severe damage: whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned; the scale paired it with winds of 158–206 mph, figures later judged too high, especially toward the top of the scale, and revised downward in the Enhanced Fujita scale. Ratings then, as now, came from the damage.

What the National Weather Service wrote

The tornado first touched down in northwest Henderson County and moved rapidly east-northeast across Ohio River bottomland. This fertile bottomland, used primarily for farming, was sparsely populated. A well-defined swath of snapped and uprooted trees was visible by air. An isolated farm house a few miles northeast of Smith Mills was destroyed. A pickup truck at the house was thrown into a field and destroyed. Due to the winding course of the Ohio River, which forms much of the Kentucky/Indiana border, the tornado crossed the river three times. The first crossing was into a peninsular section of Vanderburgh County, Indiana.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 5480522. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

Evansville Tornado (2005)

What the National Weather Service wrote

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