F4 tornado, Murfreesboro to Barfield, Tennessee, January 24, 1997

1. F040 to 72 mph

   Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

2. F173 to 112 mph

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. F2113 to 157 mph

   Considerable damage. Roofs torn off well-built houses, frame homes shifted on their foundations, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, cars lifted off the ground.

4. F3158 to 206 mph

   Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.

5. F4207 to 260 mphthis tornado

   Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

6. F5261 to 318 mph

   Incredible damage. Strong frame houses swept off their foundations, car-sized missiles thrown more than 100 meters, steel-reinforced concrete badly damaged, high-rise buildings deformed.

7. Unrated

   The survey recorded a tornado but could not put a number on it, most often because it crossed open country and damaged nothing a rating can be read from.

Rating

F4

Date

January 24, 1997

Touchdown

5:00 PM CST (23:00 UTC)

Path length

6.5 miles (10.5 km)

Path width

300 yards (274 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

18

Property damage

$4.7 million

County

Rutherford County

Touchdown point

35.780, -86.500

Lift-off point

35.830, -86.380

Record number

62

This was one of those extraordinary cases where the National Weather Service had a 41 minute lead time on a tornado warning . The F4 tornado struck the Southridge Subdivision, near Barfield, TN, at 503 PM. The tornado caused 18 injuries and 4.7 million dollars in property damages. One person had to be hospitalized overnight. The last time an F4 tornado struck Middle Tennessee was on May 18, 1995. The path length of the tornado was 6.5 miles with its intensity reaching F4 and its maximum width of 300 yards.44 homes were destroyed and 47 other homes were damaged in the Barfield area. There was also damage to a Middle School, Food Lion Supermarket and to the Chalet Apartments.The tornado first touched down on Yeargan Road, about 6 miles southwest of Murfreesboro, with an intensity of F1 and path width of 100 yards. At this location, a sheet metal roof was peeled back off a barn and a couple of trees were broken off. Also close by, a trailer was lifted off its foundation and overturned. Several trees were uprooted in the area. The tornado proceeded northeast and increased to F2 intensity with a width of 300 yards. As it struck the community of Barfield, an entire roof was lifted off a house, several homes were partially destroyed, and a barn was totally destroyed. The tornado crossed the West Fork of the Stones River and struck the Southridge Subdivision. At this time the tornado increased to a maximum intensity of F4 with its width remaining at 300 yards. About half a dozen homes were totally destroyed. The tornado then struck a large apartment complex just west of U.S. Hwy 231 on the south side of Murfreesboro. The tornado produced some structural damage and extensive roof damage as it weakened to F1 intensity and its width decreased to 150 yards. The tornado then crossed U.S. Hwy 231 and the Indian Wells Golf Course. Large trees were uprooted and structural damage occurred to several businesses as it approached I-24. The tornado continued moving to the northeast across I-24 snapping and uprooting trees as it narrowed to 50 yards wide. On the southeast side of Murfreesboro near the intersection of Elam Road and U.S. Hwy 41, and near Brandyville Road and East Rutherford Boulevard, the tornado uprooted numerous trees and damaged the roofs of several homes. It was at this point the track of the tornado ended as it lifted back into the clouds. Newspaper accounts told stories of people going to a basement, or an interior room of a house such as a bathroom or closet for safety. The low casualties from this tornado indicated all the preparedness activities of the National Weather Service for many years certainly paid off.

From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.

38 minutes of warning. NWS OHX issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:22 UTC, 38 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:15 UTC.

Every warning and watch covering the touchdown point that day, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service products. Lead time is measured from the issue of the warning in force to the touchdown time in the database, both of which were recorded to the minute by different people.

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 05:55 UTC.

SPC's Day 1 convective outlook as it stood when the tornado began, read at the touchdown point. The same archive is on the radar archive.

The radiosonde launches on either side of the tornado, from the nearest station that was launching then, drawn and analyzed the way Storm Lab does: the same diagram, the same parcel and shear definitions SPC's mesoanalysis uses.

The Nashville radar (KOHX), 50 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:03 UTC.

Open the radar archive at this moment, over the track

Reflectivity and velocity, decoded from the Level II archive in the browser. Volumes take a few seconds to open the first time.

The live radar over the trackEvery 1997 tornado in TennesseeEvery tornado in Tennessee since 1950Warnings in force in Tennessee nowThe forecast where you are

19 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. Tornado counts rise through the record as reporting improved, so a year in the 1950s is not comparable with one today except for the strongest tornadoes, which were always noticed.

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.