F1 tornado, Crab Orchard, Tennessee, November 10, 2002

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

November 10, 2002

Touchdown

7:08 PM CST (01:08 UTC)

Path length

3.4 miles (5.5 km)

Path width

400 yards (366 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Cumberland County

Touchdown point

35.900, -84.900

Lift-off point

35.920, -84.830

Record number

930

11 tornadoes were reported in Middle Tennessee in one of the worst tornadic outbreaks ever in November. 8 people...and possibly a ninth victim...were killed in Middle Tennessee alone. Damage estimate for the tornadoes in Tennessee was placed at $160 million. Primary losses were due to houses and cars. The toll on government owned infrastructure is about $6 million. The federal government is expected to reimburse the state and affected counties for 75% of the costs of responding to the disaster. The FEMA Public Assistance Program has obligated more than $3.6 million to assist local governments. These funds will be used to reimburse local governments for debris removal, the repair of public buildings and utilities, and overtime paid to police officers, firefighters and other emergency personnel.More than 900 families across the state applied for storm aid. This was the worst tornado disaster since the April3-4 outbreak in 1974. The United States Small Business Administration has approved more than 9.7 million dollars in disaster loans to assist disaster victims with repairing their property or replacing lost personal items. The 20 counties that are eligible for disaster assistance to individuals, households, and businesses were: Anderson, Bedford, Bledsoe, Carroll, Coffee, Crockett, Cumberland, Fentress, Gibson, Henderson, Madison, Marshall, Montgomery, Morgan, Roane, Rutherford, Scott, Sumner and Tipton and Van Buren.

A tornado blew a tracker trailer truck on its side at the Crab Orchard interchange at I-40. This storm complex went on into Morgan county and spawned a tornado.

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

NWS Nashville, TN wrote its last area forecast discussion before the tornado touched down at Nov 10, 3:05 PM CST, 4 hours 3 minutes earlier.

AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NASHVILLE TN
305 PM CST SUN NOV 10 2002

LATEST FORECAST MODEL DATA INDICATES THAT THE STRONG COLD FRONT WILL
ENTER MIDDLE TENNESSEE SHORTLY BEFORE 11/06Z...AND DEPART SHORTLY
AFTER THAT TIME. FROM NOW UNTIL 06Z...SHOWERS ARE EXPECTED TO
RAPIDLY DEVELOP INTO THUNDERSTORMS...FROM VERY STRONG AFTERNOON
WARMING AND DESTABILIZATION.

IT SEEMS THAT THE AFTERNOON CU FIELD HAS HAD LIMITED SUCCESS THIS
AFTERNOON SO FAR (NOT PUNCHED THROUGH MID LEVELS)...DUE TO 650-MB
BASED INVERSION OR CAP (STAIRSTEP 18Z BNA RAOB). ONCE THIS CAP
GOES...EXPECT THUNDERSTORMS TO GO SEVERE.

SOME OF THE STRONGER STORMS WILL BE ON THE LEADING EDGE OF A SQUALL
LINE THAT WILL COME INTO MIDDLE TENNESSEE THIS EVENING...BUT SOME
STRONGLY ROTATING CELLS ARE EXPECTED TO DEVELOP AHEAD OF THE EVENING
SQUALL LINE. SO WILL CONTINUE TO MENTION ISOLATED TORNADOES THIS
EVENING IN THE ZONES.

AFTER THIS ROUND OF EVENING SEVERE WEATHER...THE CHANCE OF SHOWERS
WILL CONTINUE ALL MONDAY IN THE PLATEAU...AND INTO THE MORNING
WESTERN/CENTRAL ZONES. POST-FRONTAL NORTHWEST WINDS AND LINGERING
MOISTURE WILL KEEP MORE CLOUDS AROUND (FOR THE NEXT FEW DAYS)
RELATIVE TO MOS.

PRELIMINARY NUMBERS

BNA 53 59 38 53 /  100 30 10 10
CSV 53 57 36 50 /  100 40 10 20

.BNA...NONE.

04

TNZ005>011-022>034-056>066-075>080-093>097-111130-

HAZARDOUS WEATHER OUTLOOK
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NASHVILLE TN
1145 AM CST SUN NOV 10 2002

THIS HAZARDOUS WEATHER OUTLOOK IS FOR MIDDLE TENNESSEE.

.DAY ONE...
A STRONG COLD FRONT AND POWERFUL UPPER LEVEL WINDS WILL APPROACH THE
REGION THIS AFTERNOON...AND WILL MOVE IN DURING THE EVENING. WEATHER
CONDITIONS AHEAD OF THE FRONT WILL BECOME FAVORABLE FOR SEVERE
THUNDERSTORMS...WITH ISOLATED TORNADOES POSSIBLE. THUS...ANOTHER
ROUND OF THUNDERSTORMS IS EXPECTED TO DEVELOP...WITH SEVERE
THUNDERSTORMS AND ISOLATED TORNADOES MOST PROBABLE LATE THIS
AFTERNOON AND EVENING.

.SPOTTER CALL TO ACTION STATEMENT...
WITH THE AREA IN A HIGH RISK OF SEVERE WEATHER...ACTIVATION OF
EMERGENCY MANAGERS AND SPOTTER GROUPS IS EXPECTED THIS AFTERNOON AND
EVENING.

.DAYS TWO THROUGH SEVEN...
AT THIS TIME...HAZARDOUS WEATHER CONDITIONS ARE NOT EXPECTED THROUGH
THE PERIOD.

04

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.

Crossville Memorial (CSV), 20 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Knoxville radar (KMRX), 135 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:06 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 2002 tornado in TennesseeEvery tornado in Tennessee since 1950Warnings in force in Tennessee nowThe forecast where you are

63 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 64 of them

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.