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Overview

Just after sunrise on May 30th, 2025, storms moves through central Kentucky. These storms brought a tornado to southeastern Washington County and into Mercer County. This storm summary page reviews the data and damage from this tornado.

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Washington County Tornado Damage
 (Photo Credits: Corey Houk)

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Washington County Tornado Damage (Photo Credits: Leslee Wagner) Washington County Tornado Damage (Photo Credits: Leslee Wagner)

Tornadoes

Select a tornado from the table to zoom into the track and view more information. The default table view is limited to 8 tracks, but can be scrolled by a mouse wheel or dynamically expanded. Additionally, the table can fill the entire window by clicking the small circular expanding arrow icon at the very top right of the table and returned to its original size by clicking the button again. The side information panel that opens over the map can be closed using the "X" on the upper right corner of the pop-up. Zoom into the map and click damage points to see detailed information and pictures from the surveys.

How to Use the Map

NOTE: times shown below are local to your device's time zone.

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EF-Scale

The Enhanced Fujita (EF) Scale classifies tornadoes into the following categories:

EF0
Weak

65-85 mph
EF1
Moderate
86-110 mph
EF2
Significant
111-135 mph
EF3
Severe
136-165 mph
EF4
Extreme
166-200 mph
EF5
Catastrophic
200+ mph
ef-scale
Tornadoes that fail to impact any ratable structures on the EF-Scale are rated EF-Unknown (EF-U)

Storm Reports

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Local Storm Reports Map


Radar

Washington County

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Reflectivity at 1051Z Storm Relative Velocity at 1051Z Correlation Coefficient at 1051Z

Environment

Deep layer troughing moved through the lower Ohio Valley in the morning of May 30th. Both at 300mb and 500mb, there is a jet streak which places central Kentucky under the left exit region of the jet. Due to four quadrant jet theory, the left exit region is an area of divergence aloft and a source of lift. Both the trough and the jet position bring large scale lift over the region in the morning.

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Figure 1: 300mb at 11Z Figure 2: 500mb at 11Z Figure 3: 850mb at 11Z


Due to troughing aloft and surface low pressure deepening at the surface, deep-layer shear is expected to be increased over the region (shown in Figure 4). In the lower levels, there is some shear present, however Washington County is along the northern periphery of this shear. There is also a weak nose of instability at the surface nosing into Washington County (shown in Figure 7). The LCL height over the region was 500m, which is quite low. All of these ingredients combined offer a risk for tornadogenesis around this hour, however the conditions were not extremely favorable.

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Figure 4: 0-6km Shear at 11Z Figure 5: Effective Shear at 11Z Figure 6: 0-1km Shear at 11Z

 

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Figure 7: Surface Based CAPE at 11Z Figure 8: Mixed Layer CAPE at 11Z Figure 9: LCL Height at 11Z

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