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EF1 tornado in Trigg County, Kentucky

Tornado February 28, 2017 · Trigg County, Kentucky

EF1
Rating
8.6 mi
Path length
400 yd
Path width
$300K
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 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

The tornado formed a few miles east of Lake Barkley, then tracked northeast. The tornado lifted well southeast of Cadiz. Hundreds of trees were snapped or uprooted, and one grain bin was destroyed. There was major structural damage to numerous barns. Many homes received minor to moderate siding or roof damage. Peak winds were estimated near 105 mph.

The wider storm

Isolated severe thunderstorms developed across western Kentucky during the evening hours. The storms developed ahead of a cold front in a destabilizing air mass characterized by dew points in the lower to mid 60's. The supercell storms awaited the approach of a mid-level impulse from Oklahoma, which was downstream from the primary shortwave trough over the Plains. A southwesterly low-level jet increased substantially during the evening. A couple of tornadoes were produced in southwest Kentucky, along with a few reports of hail and damaging wind. Outside of the thunderstorm activity, some of the southwest winds aloft mixed down to the surface in the form of gusts from 40 to 50 mph, and an isolated gradient wind gust to 65 mph was measured on a hill near Calvert City in Marshall County.

Began near Donaldson (36.7365, -87.8813).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 678868. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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