F1 tornado, Bon Aqua, Tennessee, May 31, 2001

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 mphthis tornado

   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 mph

   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

F1

Date

May 31, 2001

Touchdown

5:45 PM CDT (22:45 UTC)

Path length

0.7 miles (1.1 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$20,000

County

Hickman County

Touchdown point

35.930, -87.400

Lift-off point

35.970, -87.400

Record number

873

Most of the destruction was on Bee Branch Road. A mobile home was destroyed. It sat on a ridge located at 10095 Bee Br. Rd. The storm also destroyed an empty trailer. The trailer was used as a work area. 2 barns were destroyed. A calf was hurled 100 yards, and a white deck chair was carried a quarter of a mile from the property of Mr. and Mrs. Buchanon on Bee Branch Road.

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

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.

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 Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 20:05 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.

NWS Nashville, TN wrote its last area forecast discussion before the tornado touched down at May 31, 2:16 PM CDT, 3 hours 29 minutes earlier.

AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NASHVILLE TN
145 PM CDT THU MAY 31 2001

FIRST MAJOR FEATURE...H5 LOW OVER IOWA MOVING SLOWLY NORTHEAST WITH
A SHORTWAVE TROUGH THAT EXTENDS SSW THROUGH THE LOWER PLAINS. 2 VORT
FEATURES AHEAD OF THE TROUGH...ONE LOCATED IN THE MEMPHIS AREA AND
THE SECOND ...LESS DEFINED CENTER...IS LOCATED OVER SOUTH CENTRAL
TEXAS. THE CONVECTION OVER WEST TENNESSEE APPEARS TO BE ASSOCIATED
WITH THE VORT CENTER IN THE MEMPHIS AREA.

THE SECOND MAJOR FEATURE...WELL DEFINED H5 LOW OVER
SASKATCHEWAN-MANITOBA BORDER DROPPING SOUTHEASTWARD. MOVEMENT TO THE
SOUTHEAST SHOULD INCREASE AS THE IOWA LOW CONTINUES TO MOVE
NORTHEAST.

AT THE SURFACE...SURFACE LOW IS LOCATED JUST NORTHWEST OF ST LOUIS
MOVING EASTWARD AT 15 KT. A WARM FRONT EXTENDS FROM THE LOW EAST-SOUTHEAST
INTO EASTERN KENTUCKY. THE ASSOCIATED COLD FRONT EXTENDS SOUTHWESTWARD
THROUGH THE LOWER PLAINS INTO NORTH TEXAS.

MODEL PUSH THE SURFACE LOW NORTHEASTWARD INTO THE GREAT LAKES DRAGGING
THE COLD FRONT THROUGH THE MIDSTATE LATER TONIGHT AND EARLY FRIDAY
MORNING. AS THE SASKATCHEWAN LOW DROPS OUT OF CANADA A SECOND FRONT
MOVES TOWARD THE MIDSTATE ON SATURDAY WITH WINDS TURNING BACK TO THE
NORTHWEST BY SATURDAY EVENING. ONLY A BRIEF RESPITE AS ANOTHER SYSTEM
MOVES OUT OF THE PLAINS SUNDAY AND MONDAY.

FWC POPS AND TEMPS LOOK VERY REASONABLE. SELS OUTLOOKED A SLIGHT CHANCE
OF SEVERE. ORIGINALLY THOUGH THAT THIS MIGHT HAPPEN TODAY...BUT...
MORNING CLOUDINESS HAS HELD DOWN TEMPS AND IT LOOKS LIKE WE WONT
DESTABILIZE ENOUGH THIS AFTERNOON...AND...THE WIND PROFILE IS NOT
REALLY CONDUCIVE TO SEVERE. AS THE FRONT APPROACHES TONIGHT...THE WIND
PROFILE SHOULD IMPROVE AND THERE IS THE POSSIBILITY OF ISOLATED SEVERE
IN THE PRE-FRONTAL CONVECTION. MODELS ARE ONLY PREDICTING ABOUT 20-30KT
OF 0-3 KM SHEAR OVERNIGHT. THUS...I DONT THINK THAT THIS IS ENOUGH OF A
POSSIBILITY TO MENTION IT IN THE ZONE PACKAGE.

BNA BE 063/075 060/075 055 18822
CSV EE 062/070 055/070 050 18951

.BNA...NONE.

JLM

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.

Columbia (MRC), 48 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The Nashville radar (KOHX), 82 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:46 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 2001 tornado in TennesseeEvery tornado in Tennessee since 1950Warnings in force in Tennessee nowThe forecast where you are

9 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.