Kentucky’s Devastating Tornado in May Left a Trail of Destruction Visible From Space
Satellite imagery released by NASA features a giant brown streak where the storm sliced through the Daniel Boone National Forest
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On May 16, one of the strongest and deadliest tornadoes ever documented in the area hit three counties in Kentucky, taking 20 lives and leaving a path of destruction 55.6 miles long. The twister, which struck around 10:30 p.m. Eastern time and didn’t let up until shortly before midnight, was at times almost a mile wide, and it reached wind speeds of up to 170 miles per hour.
Now, the NASA Earth Observatory has released an image captured by its Landsat 9 satellite on June 4, which depicts the tornado’s path across the Daniel Boone National Forest. In other words, the scar is so significant that it’s visible from space.
According to the National Weather Service, the tornado reached an EF-4 on the Enhanced Fujita (EF) scale, which classifies the severity of tornadoes based on wind speeds estimated from the damage. The rankings span from EF-0 to EF-5, with an EF-4 tornado corresponding to three-second gust speeds between 166 and 200 miles per hour.
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NASA reports that the tornado reached an EF-3 level while heading toward the city of Somerset, where it uprooted a high-tension power pole east of the city and flung it hundreds of yards away. It reached EF-4 severity near the city of London and killed 17 people in Kentucky’s Laurel County alone, as reported by the local news station WLKY’s Jennifer Osting.
The twister wrecked buildings and vegetation alike, leaving behind a brownish trail of devastation that reached its peak width as it blazed through the Daniel Boone National Forest, per NASA. There, it uprooted trees, snapped branches and tore off bark across the forest.
The distribution of tornadoes in the U.S. seems to have shifted from the Midwest toward the Southeast, according to a 2024 study cited by the space agency. So, despite the fact that tornado frequency in the country has declined a little, forests in southeastern states have experienced more tornado damage in recent decades.
Kentucky’s tornado occurred during a broader multi-day severe weather outbreak that also saw deadly storms in Missouri and Virginia. Between May 15 and May 19, the U.S. Storm Prediction Center received almost 2,500 reports of severe weather from across the nation, including shockingly large hail, as reported by the Weather Network’s Dennis Mersereau. The May 16 tornado was the deadliest ever recorded to hit the area around Jackson, Kentucky.
“I promise that we will be there for our people until every home and every life is rebuilt. And I want to thank all our heroic first responders for the work they’ve done over the past few days,” Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear said in a statement last month. “This is another incredibly tough time for Kentucky. And it’s another reminder that life is short, and it’s our duty to be kind and do good.”
The bout of severe weather “renewed some meteorologists’ concerns over [federal] cuts to National Weather Service (NWS) stations, including those that provide weather updates to rural communities,” writes Brady Africk, deputy director of media relations and data design at the think tank American Enterprise Institute, in the satellite imagery newsletter Views From Above. He adds that the NWS station in Jackson no longer has an overnight staff and called in workers to respond to the tornado, which occurred late at night.
