NWS Confirms Two Tornadoes Struck South-Central Kentucky

After the severe weather that impacted our region on Wednesday morning, the National Weather Service has now confirmed that two tornadoes struck south-central Kentucky early Wednesday morning.

The first tornado struck in the western portion of Butler County south of Rochester at approximately 12:35 AM CST and was on the ground for around 2 minutes. The tornado damage survey (which our very own Landon Hampton took part in) determined that the tornado was an EF-1 with up to 86 MPH winds and was on the ground for around 1 mile.

Most of the damage was to trees, with some twisted and uprooted. There was one building damaged near where the tornado touched down but otherwise, this was a mainly rural event.

Another, slightly stronger tornado occurred a few hours later just east of Bowling Green in Warren County.

NWS Louisville was also accompanied by our very own Landon Hampton and by students from Western Kentucky University’s Meteorology Program on their survey and they found that this storm was a higher-end EF-1 tornado with winds approaching 110 MPH.

This tornado caused extensive damage in certain places along it’s three-mile path from around Hayes Rd. until it lifted near the Warren/Allen county line. Several buildings, including a barn and a few residences were damaged as the tornado moved overhead.

This tornado reached a peak width of around 125 yards and was on the ground for approximately 4 minutes from 7:24-7:28am CT.

The interesting part of this tornado event is that while Butler County was placed under a tornado warning, the Warren County tornado near Claypool did not go under a tornado warning but was instead under a severe thunderstorm warning.

This is an excellent example that shows that tornadoes can happen even though you’re not under a tornado warning, so don’t ignore those severe thunderstorm warnings. Just because you’re not under a tornado warning doesn’t mean you can’t or won’t see damage.