Tornadoes · United States · Tennessee · 2000
F1 tornado, Nashville, Tennessee, February 13, 2000
This F1 tornado ran 4.3 miles across Davidson County on February 13, 2000, touching down at 6:04 PM CST and reaching 200 yards wide. It killed nobody and injured 1, and did $500,000 of property damage.
The rating scale
Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.
F040 to 72 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
F173 to 112 mphthis tornado
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
F4207 to 260 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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.
The record
- Rating
- F1
- Date
- February 13, 2000
- Touchdown
- 6:04 PM CST (00:04 UTC)
- Path length
- 4.3 miles (6.9 km)
- Path width
- 200 yards (183 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 1
- Property damage
- $500,000
- County
- Davidson County
- Touchdown point
- 36.150, -86.870
- Lift-off point
- 36.150, -86.800
- Record number
- 54
What the Weather Service recorded
About 50 homes and 20 businesses received damage from this tornado. A 25 foot hackberry tree fell on a house. An oak tree crashed into the side of a building. A school trailer was destroyed at St. Vincent De Paul School. There was 15 rooftop damage at an apartment complex on Delta Street. The hardest hit area of downtown Nashville was the Eight Avenue North and Bordeaux . The tornado started around Scovel Street and 28th Avenue North. Extensive damage occurred from this location and to the eastnortheast for just over a mile in length. Numerous trees were uprooted or snapped. Powerlines were down. A number of homes suffered roof damage. The tornado crossed I-265 , moving eastnortheast reaching Arthur Avenue, 10th Ave. and 9th Ave. North, crossed the Cumberland River and then reaching Dickerson Pike and Ellington Parkway, finally dissipating around Petway Avenue and Gallatin Road.One woman was injured when an interstate sign blew into her car and caused her to wreck.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
24 minutes of warning. NWS OHX issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:40 UTC, 24 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:15 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 23:19 UTC | 23:45 UTC | Tornado Warning | OHX |
| 23:40 UTC | 00:15 UTC | Tornado Warning | OHX |
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 forecast that day
The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:52 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 air that afternoon
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.
Nashville Metro, TN (KBNA), 00:00Z
0.1 hours before the tornado, 21 km from the path. February 14, 2000.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 107 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -10 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 2 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 556 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 57 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 49 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 523 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 558 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 1.1
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.1 K/km
Nashville Metro, TN (KBNA), 12:00Z
11.9 hours after it, 21 km from the path. February 14, 2000.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -73299 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 2 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 575 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 60 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 22 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 72 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 133 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.1 K/km
The surface observations
Nashville Metro (BNA), 14 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (kt) | Pressure (mb) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22:16 UTC | 59 | 57.2 | 140° 9 kt | 1003.7 | -RA BR | |
| 22:26 UTC | 59 | 57.2 | 150° 8 kt | 1003.4 | -RA BR | |
| 22:53 UTC | 59 | 58 | 190° 4 kt | 1003.7 | RA BR | |
| 23:09 UTC | 59 | 57.2 | 140° 9 kt | 1003 | RA BR | |
| 23:13 UTC | 59 | 57.2 | 140° 10 kt | 1003 | TSRA BR | |
| 23:21 UTC | 59 | 57.2 | 160° 11 kt | 1003 | -TSRA BR | |
| 23:42 UTC | 59 | 57.2 | 170° 11 kt | 1003.4 | -TSRA BR | |
| 23:53 UTC | 60 | 58 | 180° 12 kt | 18 | 1003.4 | TSRA BR |
| 00:29 UTC | 59 | 55.4 | 4 kt | 1004.7 | +TSRA BR | |
| 00:53 UTC | 58 | 56 | 200° 10 kt | 1004.4 | +TSRA BR | |
| 01:38 UTC | 57.2 | 55.4 | 230° 10 kt | 1003.7 | +TSRA BR | |
| 01:53 UTC | 58 | 56 | 200° 6 kt | 1002.7 | TSRA BR |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2000 tornado in TennesseeEvery tornado in Tennessee since 1950Warnings in force in Tennessee nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of February 13, 2000
10 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| February 13 | 3:00 PM CST | F1 | Montgomery, AL | 11.4 | 300 | $100,000 | ||
| February 13 | 3:30 PM CST | F0 | Montgomery, AL | 3.0 | 100 | $20,000 | ||
| February 13 | 3:42 PM CST | F0 | Bullock, AL | 1.0 | 50 | $10,000 | ||
| February 13 | 4:52 PM CST | F0 | Faulkner, AR | 2.2 | 40 | |||
| February 13 | 5:38 PM CST | F2 | Lonoke, AR | 32.7 | 100 | 2 | ||
| February 13 | 8:15 PM CST | F1 | Washington, FL | 0.5 | 50 | $300,000 | ||
| February 13 | 8:18 PM CST | F1 | Washington, FL | 0.5 | 50 | $750,000 | ||
| February 13 | 11:19 PM EST | F1 | Decatur, GA | 0.2 | 50 | 1 | $1.0 million | |
| February 13 | 11:42 PM EST | F3 | Mitchell, GA | 9.2 | 300 | 11 | 175 | $20 million |
| February 13 | 12:49 AM EST | F3 | Grady, GA | 15.0 | 300 | 7 | 15 | $5.0 million |
What this means
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.
Sources
NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.