EF1 tornado in Hardin County, Kentucky

This brief, skipping tornado touched down initially as an EF-0 near the east end of Labrador Way, in a subdivision 1.5 miles south of the Rineyville Elementary School. It did minor roof damage to two homes, tossed a trampoline into a neighboring home, causing siding damage, and pushed a large travel trailer onto a minivan, heavily damaging both. Mud was spattered onto the north-facing front of the home, where a porch column support was also moved slightly. From here it traveled east-northeast, snapping tree limbs as it skipped over mainly open pastureland until it reached Thomas Rd.

On the west side of Thomas Road, the tornado reached its greatest intensities and size, with winds of 100 mph and a path width of 80 yards. Here it damaged four outbuildings, completely destroying two - the largest being a 30 x 50 structure. The debris pattern from the four outbuildings and nearby trees with snapped trunks and limbs showed clear cyclonic rotation. Metal roofing and siding material was scattered nearly a quarter of a mile to the east- northeast, with some of it lofted into the trees of a heavily wooded area. Other building debris from the largest structure was blown to the northwest, and the south and east-facing walls of a number of structures were spattered with leaves and other ground-based vegetation. Three east-facing garage doors of one of the outbuildings were blown in, and damage sustained to the vehicles in the driveway from downed tree limbs. Three homes in the area sustained roof and siding damage, including a 2x4 from one of the outbuildings blown through an exterior wall.

The tornado became elevated as it continued east-northeast from Thomas Rd, snapping a few tree limbs in a wooded area before briefly touching down one last time on Rineyville Rd, where it littered the highway with tree limbs and tore the front porch off a home, vaulting the roof over the house into the back yard. Security cameras from a business next door captured the damage occurring as a wall of wind and water that occurred in less than half a minute. No further damage occurred to the east of this location as the tornado dissipated. NWS was assisted in the storm survey by Hardin County Emergency Management.

Large scale lift and moisture transport were in place beneath the right entrance region of an upper level jet situated between a central U.S. trough and an Atlantic Coast ridge. A former tropical low coupled with and rode the upper level flow northeast along a cold front that was draped across the middle and lower Mississippi River Valley. This strengthened a surface wave that moved through the Ohio River Valley region that caused a response in the low level jet, resulting in an increase in precipitation coverage and intensity. The intensified storms produced areas of gusty winds and a single tornado in Hardin County, Kentucky.