SETUP:

There was a very broad, yet still potentially strong, mid-to-upper level jet that spread plenty of wind shear across the area. A frontal system within this system provided the lift with extreme instability (3000-4000 CAPE). There was cold air aloft, which led to an extreme hail threat along with a damaging wind and tornado threat. The setup was very similar to the afternoon setup of 5/26/2024. We had significant tornadoes, hail, and damaging winds from this system. During the afternoon round, much of the severe weather occurred from two long-tracked supercells. One tracked all the way from the Ozarks through our entire area, and pretty much through the entire state. Another supercell produced a high-end EF-4 in Southern IL and then produced a strong EF-3 on the southside of Morganfield. Afterward, the storms formed a line segment and produced some pockets of 75-90MPH winds.

MORGANFIELD TORNADO:

The tornado formed from a long-tracked supercell that produced several tornadoes in Southern IL (including a strong EF-4 south of Marion, IL). This tornado formed south of KY-56 near the intersection of Bunger Road and KY-2834. Harding Road, KY-130, and the US 60 corridor south of downtown had the worst damage, with around $15 million dollars in damage and a few minor injuries. Thankfully, this tornado lifted and didn’t stay down, even as the supercell moved across Henderson/Daviess Counties.

THE LONG-TRACKED SUPERCELL:

This supercell really came into its own in Southeast Missouri, where a deadly EF-3 tornado occurred. This storm crossed into Ballard County and impacted Barlow and LaCenter. Barlow had 4.5 inch diameter hail (softball-sized) and was one of the largest hailstones to ever occur in our area. Baseball-sized hail occurred in LaCenter, south of Princeton, and near Bowling Green. Throughout the entire path of this storm we had golfball-sized or larger hail.

There were two tornadoes in our area from this supercell. One was an EF-1 in the Lamasco area, and the other was the EF-2 tornado that occurred in NE Christian into Northern Todd County (Allegre area). Once this storm left the Bowling Green area, it continued to produce large to very large hail, before producing a long-track EF-4 tornado across the Somerset and London, KY area.

DAMAGING WINDS:

The last part of this storm was the frontal system itself. In which we had pockets of extremely damaging winds. One was in the Princeton area, in which buildings in downtown were damaged. The other zone of intense damaging winds occurred in the LBL area of Trigg County and produced widespread 70-90MPH across Trigg/Christian Counties. This line segment also produced an EF-2 tornado on the southern outskirts of Hopkinsville and also an EF-1 tornado in Logan County. These swaths of damaging winds produced widespread power outages that lasted several days and a few million dollars of damage.

IMPACT:

This along with the 5/26/2024 event, was one of the worst May severe weather events in recorded history for our area. The combination of nearly record-breaking hail, widespread damaging winds, and the EF-3 and EF-2 tornado produced tens of millions of dollars of damage and widespread travel/power issues for a few days. This was part of a very rough Spring of 2025.