Daviess County Emergency Management Agency (DCEMA) Director Andy Ball was joined by Paducah National Weather Service (NWS) Meteorologist Mike York on Thursday as the two trekked through west Daviess County to assess damages caused by a powerful storm that hit the area on Sunday.
Sunday’s storm moved in from the southwest and hit the area outside of Owensboro right after 3 p.m. Ball said DCEMA began receiving reports of damage around 3:30 p.m. that day.
“There was a lot of wind damage, but no hail damage,” Ball said. “There was also a lot of heavy rain that fell.”
One property in particular caught Ball’s eye before asking NWS to travel to Daviess County to inspect the damages.
“The Lanham property on [State Route] 500 was one I wanted to focus on with NWS,” Ball said. “A metal barn was damaged, and it was newer. A trampoline was damaged, as well as a 4,000-pound trailer that got moved in the opposite direction than it should’ve moved if it’d been straight-line winds. If we did have a phenomenon, it happened at that property.”
After assessing that home and all the damage in the area, which varied from displaced roofs, to uprooted trees, to fallen power lines, York predicted that a meteorological phenomenon may have struck the West Louisville and St. Joseph areas at the western edge of the county.
While York didn’t believe a tornado touched down, he did believe a “gustnado” was the likely culprit for the disheveled aftermath.
“A gustnado is a different meteorological phenomenon that can happen when straight-line winds produce a funnel on the ground that does similar damage to that of a tornado,” Ball said. “The radar didn’t show any major rotation. At least 80 percent of the damage we assessed was caused by straight-line winds.”
After assessing damages on Thursday, York took some data back to the NWS station in Paducah and examined some aerial footage that was taken via drone to determine the type and magnitude of the storm that hit.
York’s findings determined that a gustnado was embedded in a 3-mile long microburst with peak winds of 90 mph.
“An embedded gustnado struck the residence where the trailer was moved north and the garage was pushed east,” York said. “Definitely a circulation there, but doubtful it reached to cloud base. It’s a good opportunity to educate people that whether the wind is swirling or not, it’s still 90 mph.”
Although Ball said the storm was over within a matter of minutes, the damage it inflicted was notable Thursday as multiple structures revealed damaged or missing roofs and heaps of broken wood sat where barns had stood before. Electric poles leaned to the side down Cummings Lane, brought down by trees that had fallen onto the cables.
Diamond Lake Resort, located at 7301 Hobbs Rd., reported several damaged trailers and downed trees throughout the property as well.
However bad the damages, Ball said it was a relief that nobody in the area was injured by the powerful winds.
