MAYYFIELD KENTUCKY DAMAGENational Weather Service received 37 reports of tornadoes in six states. The most destructive tornado or possibly tornadoes, ripped a patch of damage around 227 miles from northeast Arkansas. southeast Missouri, through Tennessee in Kentucky, where the town of Mayfield was virtually leveled. An estimated 90 people lost their lives in the series of storms, many in the 24/7 Amazon warehouse in Mayfield. The unusually high death toll can also be attributed to the fact that the storm(s) struck at night, when visual spotting was impossible.
At least one of the storms likely rated an EF-5, shearing homes off their foundations, throwing a debris cloud up to 30,000 feet into the air and it stayed aloft for up to 3 hours.
Two days in advance, the Storm Prediction Center placed the affected area (Mid Mississippi Valley) in a risk zone for tornadoes, upgraded to “Enhanced Risk” 24 hours in advance of the storm outbreak. The NWS in Memphis issued the first tornado warning for a circulation on radar at 7:06 Friday night, “A confirmed, large and extremely dangerous tornado.” The warning was headlined “PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS SITUATION” and “TAKE COVER NOW.” The tornado struck Monette, Arkansas where it severely damaged a nursing home at 7:24.
The storms intensified for the next two hours as they moved northeast to hit Mayfield, Kentucky
around 9:27.
The unusually long path of the storm is possibly due the phenomenon of “re-cycling.” Often, tornadoes will wrap up around themselves as the lead cyclone weakens, then the storm develops a new circulation on the southwest flank of the storm, perpetuating the storm for many miles.
In March of 1925, the infamous “Tri-City Tornado” passed from Missouri through southern Illinois into Indiana killing 695 people when telegraph and telephone were the only means of warning cities in the path of a storm.
Before Friday night’s tornado outbreak, only 14 tornado fatalities had occurred during 2021, far below normal. In a normal year, 60-80 people are lost to tornado damage.