F1 tornado, Clarksville to Port Royal, 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

1:00 AM CST (07:00 UTC)

Path length

0.3 miles (0.5 km)

Path width

400 yards (366 m)

Deaths

2

Injuries

0

Property damage

$100,000

County

Montgomery County

Touchdown point

36.530, -87.150

Lift-off point

36.550, -87.130

Record number

927

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.

The first tornado was rated F0 (40-72 mph) and briefly touched down about 1.2 miles east of the I-24 interchange on Highway 76. Trees were trees twisted and snapped.

The husband, Dennis Tooby and his wife, Karen Tooby, were killed when their mobile home was blown off its foundation at the 3400 block of Port Royal Rd. Mr. Tooby was a Australian national and a welder. Mrs. Tooby taught first grade at Hazelwood Elementary School in Clarksville. Two mobile homes were lifted off their foundation and hurled across the road. The tornado damaged 60 homes and one public building. Most of the damages were minor.

The deaths

2 direct deaths are recorded for this tornado, each with what Storm Data knows of it.

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

48 minutes of warning. NWS OHX issued a tornado warning for this county at 06:12 UTC, 48 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 07:15 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 High Risk, with a 0.25 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 05:28 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.

Clarksville/Outlaw (CKV), 26 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

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.