Tornadoes of March 25, 1964

March 25, 1964
Counties:  Franklin
F-scale:  F1
Deaths:  0
Injuries:  0
Path width:  10 yards
Path length:  1/10 mile
Time:  6:00pm
Grazulis narrative:  A small tornado demolished a barn and carried the barn timbers a half mile away from the barn site.
Noted discrepancies:  SPC/NCDC call this an F1, Grazulis says F2.  SPC gives a path length of 1/10 of a mile and a width of 10 yards...NCDC and Grazulis give nothing for either.  The lat/lon pair for this tornado listed by SPC/NCDC put it in southern Floyd County Indiana.  Grazulis lists the tornado in Franklin County but gives no location or path length.   If SPC/NCDC's lat/lon is changed from -85.92 to -84.92, it is placed in Franklin County.  More research would be nice, to confirm its location and to get a better handle on path width and length.

March 25, 1964
Counties:  Jefferson KY, Shelby, Oldham, Henry
F-scale:  F2
Deaths:  0
Injuries: 1
Path width:  30 yards
Path length: 
Time:  7:00pm
Grazulis narrative:  Skipped east-northeast from just east of Standiford Field to Smithfield and New Castle.  The "bounding" tornado, and accompanying high winds, unroofed or damaged four homes, 31 barns, and fifty other buildings.
Jefferson County:  The Jefferson County portion of the track was well-covered in the local newspapers.  The tornado touched down on the east side of Louisville International Airport at the intersection of Standiford Lane and Preston Highway, where it lifted and blew a car 40 feet, depositing it on its roof.  The tornado grew to about two blocks wide and tore the roof off of a home at 4503 Zeta Court, dropping it in the back yard.  Also on Zeta Court a car was flipped over.  At about the same time a truck was flipped over at 2420 Cavelle Avenue.   The tornado may have weakened or lifted slightly as the storm moved through Watterson Park and West Buechel.  Damage then occurred again when a frame home's garage was torn from its foundation at 2835 Klondike Lane and was thrown 100 feet into the side of Saint Martha Catholic Church.  On Dale Ann Drive a playhouse weighing 1500 pounds was blown 200 feet.  After causing comparatively little damage in Houston Acres, the tornado strengthened again and grew to a width of about three blocks.  On Cardwell Way a carport collapsed, three homes were damaged, and a car was demolished.  Meanwhile, siding was removed from a home at 58 Hallsdale Drive and a garage was destroyed next door at 60 Hallsdale Drive.  The tornado may have again weakened or lifted as the storm crossed Blue Ridge Manor and Anchorage.  The last damage report in Jefferson County was on Collins Lane where homes and commercial buildings were damaged, and roofs were removed from barns.  The head of the weather service office in Louisville, O. K. Anderson, surveyed the damage and said there was no doubt in his mind that it was a small, bounding tornado. Click here for a map of the Jefferson County portion of this tornado track.  Louisville newspapers did not mention any damage in Oldham or Shelby Counties.  There was mention of tornado damage in Smithfield and just outside New Castle in Henry County.
Noted discrepancies:  Grazulis does not include Shelby County.  NCDC does not list Oldham County or Henry County, and lists Jefferson County twice.  Storm Data lists only Jefferson and Henry counties.  SPC, Storm Data, and NCDC give a time of 7:00pm, Grazulis give 7:25pm.  SPC gives and endpoint lat/lon of 28.50/-85.12...NCDC give 38.22/-85.45.  SPC, Storm Data, and NCDC list one injury...Grazulis lists none.  SPC gives a path length of 38 miles, NCDC gives 33 miles, Storm Data says 40 miles, Grazulis lists a skipping path of 23 miles.  SPC gives a path width of 10 yards, NCDC 30 yards, Grazulis 40 yards.   The second of the two Jefferson County entries at NCDC lists the touchdown point with the exact same lat/lon as the liftoff point in the first Jefferson County entry.  Grazulis does mention that the tornado skipped.  The NCDC touchdown lat/lon in Shelby County is not the same as the liftoff lat/lon in Jefferson County, though it ought to be if the tornado went directly from Jefferson County into Shelby County as one coherent tornado, so perhaps at the NCDC website the Shelby County event is a separate tornado, and is also a separate tornado according to Grazulis who perhaps felt it was not F2 and thus omitted it...?  Grazulis takes the twister from Jefferson County into Oldham County (instead of Shelby County) and on into Henry County (agreeing with SPC's database).  The touchdown and liftoff lat/lon given by SPC/NCDC agree perfectly with Grazulis.  Using the touchdown and liftoff lat/lons at SPC, this tornado would have missed Shelby County.  The end lat/lon given by NCDC for Shelby County is actually located in Henry County.  Storm Data narrative says, "A small tornado of the bounding type moved in a straight line west-southwest to east-northeast from about half a mile east of Standiford Field...to approximately ten miles northeast.  Apparently the same tornado continued northeastward into Henry County.  It touched down several times in Jefferson County, and in Henry County...in the vicinities of Smithfield and New Castle."  More research is necessary.