May Tornado Damage Analysis

On May 16, 2025, a powerful tornado left a nearly 60-mile track of severe damage from Somerset to London. Nineteen people died, scores were injured, and homes were destroyed. With wind speeds as high as 170 miles per hour, the tornado tore through the Daniel Boone National Forest, crossing the Rockcastle River just north of the Narrows and following the northern edge of the Cane Creek watershed. Images circulated online have shown large swaths of uprooted and splintered trees with hardly a tree standing. To better understand the scale and distribution of the impacts, Kentucky Heartwood utilized NASA satellite data and imagery to delineate the affected areas of national forest. We estimated that approximately 3,150 acres of national forest were severely impacted, including 1,943 acres of mature forests over 80 years old. For perspective, the Daniel Boone NF has an annual timber harvest target including approximately 1,700 acres of regeneration cuts leaving only a few trees per acre. The tornado converted about as much mature forest to regenerating young forest as the Forest Service aims for annually through timber harvest, and created nearly as much early seral habitat as two years’ objectives for the agency’s timber program. 

The structure and function of forests is inextricably linked to disturbances, natural and human-caused. These include things like fire, wind, ice, and the historic impacts of animals like elk, bison, and passenger pigeons. The type, timing, severity, and frequency of disturbances can all result in profoundly differing responses over both the short and long-term for the forest ecosystem and the natural communities it supports. Disturbance can be both vital and catastrophic. While dramatic and devastating, the tornado’s impacts to the forest are, in most respects, natural. Just as trees grow and leaves fall in autumn, severe weather that destroys trees is part of how our forests exist and function. And yet, recent research has shown that tornado activity in the U.S. has shifted eastward, with significant increases in the amount of damage to southeastern forests over the last two decades.

It’s also the case that the forest’s response may be different than it would have been under historical conditions. Past clearcutting and fire suppression have resulted in some of the upland forests becoming more dense and shady than they likely were historically leading to the loss or diminishment of species that benefit from more open forest conditions. Nearly-extirpated remnants of barrens or prairie-like communities are scattered through the area, including species like wood lily (Lilium philadelphicum) and blazing star (Liatris spicata), while thicket or edge species like native crabapples (Malus coronaria and M. angustifolia) and hawthorns (Crataegus species) are sorely underrepresented. Most of the area’s shortleaf and pitch pine was lost during the southern pine beetle outbreak from 1999-2002. Non-native invasive species, like Japanese honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica), autumn olive (Elaeagnus umbellata), princess tree (Paulownia tomentosa), and many others, will certainly take advantage of the disturbance to expand their footprint. And oak regeneration has been limited, with young oaks shaded out under dense overstories, then lost to competition with fast-growing red maple and tulip poplar following regeneration harvests. 

In the short-term, the tornado’s impacts will probably benefit a suite of wildlife species, including some disturbance-dependent migratory songbirds and “demand species” like ruffed grouse and wild turkey. But how the forest recovers over time, and which species benefit (or are lost) will be affected greatly by how the Forest Service manages the area moving forward. The agency is advancing quickly with salvage logging operations. The impacts of salvage will likely be mixed, and depend greatly on how the Forest Service addresses ground disturbing activities like log landings and skid roads, invasive species management, and logging in areas with steep slopes and sensitive flora. Given the agency’s critical understaffing, directives to meet massive timber targets, and pressure to move quickly, it’s questionable how much oversight and attention to detail there will be.

Still, it’s possible for the Forest Service to turn this into an opportunity for real ecological restoration. Timely and regular prescribed fire will be critical, and could help recover some of the historic and biodiverse barrens and wooded grasslands that have been almost entirely lost. Propagation and seeding of area’s grassland flora into disturbed areas could help restore, even save, these natural communities, while scattered and clustered planting of shortleaf and pitch pine could contribute to a restoration of historic, functioning pine barrens. This would all take initiative, cooperation, and resources. It’s a tall order, but entirely possible. 

-Jim Scheff

Kentucky Heartwood Staff Ecologist