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EF1 tornado in Allen County, Kentucky

Tornado June 21, 2019 · Allen County, Kentucky

EF1
Rating
3.3 mi
Whole path
125 yd
Path width
$325K
Damage as recorded

NOAA records this tornado county by county. Its path ran through Allen County → Macon County, Tennessee; the totals above are for the whole tornado.

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 125 yards (0.07 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 National Weather Service conducted a storm damage survey across southeast Allen County to assess damage from the storms on Friday Evening, June 21. There was a significant amount of straight line wind damage across southern Allen County. Most of this damage had wind speeds between 60-65 mph all facing east southeast direction. There were two significant areas of straight line wind damage. There was a barn north of Amos on Highway 99. The second was two large barns just north of Hayesville, TN.

Interspersed among the straight line wind damage was a tornado which first touched down a half mile east of Amos. A family farm had numerous trees twisted, snapped, and uprooted. Several barns sustained severe structural damage to the roofs. A dozen or so portions of two by fours were impaled into the ground in multiple directions.

Further southeast on Highland Church Road numerous trees were uprooted and snapped with trees facing from the north northeast to the southeast direction. There was clear evidence that the tornado went to the Tennessee state line in Macon County as we could see trees snapped and uprooted on the state line which correlates well with the NWS Nashville storm survey across the Macon County line.

At 2592 Highland Church Road (Highland General Baptist Church) there was significant brick damage on the west, south, and east sides of the church due to open vents. The survey crew zig zagged across roads south of Scottsville to Highway 31 but only found sporadic straight line tree and barn damage all facing a southeasterly direction.

The very last concentrated area of damage the team found was at 444 Old Buck Creek Road were there was numerous softwood tree damage at the residence with power poles down across the road.

The wider storm

A large Mesoscale Convective System (MCS) formed over Missouri early in the day. By evening, a line of severe storms had made its way into Kentucky and sounthern Indiana. This line continued south and southeast through Kentucky causing widespread damage and a loss of life. In the end, 3 tornadoes were confirmed with many other reports of downed trees, severe hail, property damage, and power outages.

Began near Amos (36.6484, -86.0819).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

2 more tornadoes the National Weather Service filed under this storm episode.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 841526. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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