Tornado touches down overnight near Lexington

Editor's note: This story was published Monday, before the tornado outbreak that occurred in Kentucky overnight Saturday. Follow this link for updating coverage, and check courier-journal.com for more information throughout the weekend.

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Wet weather welcomed in the new week overnight in Louisville, but other areas of the state were hit harder.

An EF1 tornado touched down early Monday morning in Stamping Ground, Kentucky, according to the National Weather Service's Louisville branch, causing two confirmed injuries along with two overturned homes and damage to several trees and power lines over roads.

One of those trees damaged a home in the small town in Scott County, according to NWS Louisville meteorologist Evan Webb.

Officials with the weather department were still surveying the damage in the central Kentucky county early Monday afternoon, Webb said, but the tornado is believed to have touched down about 5:20 a.m. and reached peak wind speeds of 95 mph. Some of the damage in Scott County is believed to have been caused by straight-line winds, Webb added. "not all the damage is necessarily tornadic," he said.

Scott County Schools were closed because of the power outages.

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EF1 tornadoes are on the lower end of the Enhanced Fujita scale, which rates intensity of the windstorms. Wind speeds of EF1 tornadoes fall between 73 and 112 mph. The most intense tornadoes, which fall under the EF5 category, include wind speeds higher that 260 mph.

The touchdown in Stamping Ground was the only tornado reported in NWS Louisville's coverage area, Webb said, though a NWS Paducah representative said earlier Monday that crews in the state's western portion were investigating potential tornado damage recorded overnight in Graves and Calloway counties as well as an unconfirmed tornado that may have hit Todd County.

It didn't get quite as bad overnight in Jefferson County.

No tornadoes were reported in Louisville, Webb confirmed, but the city saw plenty of rain and strong winds. About an inch of rain was recorded through the morning on Monday at Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport, Webb said, with the peak wind speed reaching 47 mph.

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This story may be updated.

Lucas Aulbach can be reached at laulbach@courier-journal.com, 502-582-4649 or on Twitter @LucasAulbach.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Tornado hits Scott County, Kentucky, as heavy storm hits Louisville