EF1 tornado, Shiloh to Cumberland Hgts, Tennessee, May 2, 2008

1. EF065 to 85 mph

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

2. EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado

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

3. EF2111 to 135 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. EF3136 to 165 mph

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

5. EF4166 to 200 mph

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

6. EF5over 200 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

EF1

Date

May 2, 2008

Touchdown

11:57 PM CDT (04:57 UTC)

Lifted

11:58 PM CDT (04:58 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.7 miles (1.1 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$5,000

County

Montgomery County

Touchdown point

36.377, -87.540

Lift-off point

36.384, -87.530

Record number

0805022257-01

Isolated severe weather activity started in the western part of Middle Tennessee Friday evening. The activity became tornadic early Saturday morning on May 3.

The tornado struck at 3675 Possum Hollow Rd. The tornado snapped trees, and the trees were lying in different directions. Two very large trees were uprooted behind the house.

A mobile home was tore apart at 4160 Tarsus Road in Palmyra, TN. The mobile home was blown off its base and hurled across the road. Trees were snapped.

The tornado rolled a mobile home across the road on Harris Circle. Numerous trees were snapped. There were 3 minor injuries from folks inside the mobile home.

A pavilion was destroyed at the Montgomery County Fairgrounds, which is about 2 miles south-southwest of downtown Clarksville. Telephone poles were snapped in half. A wooden utility pole was leaning. ||There was damage to the bleachers at the fairgrounds. ||Fairground bleachers were deemed unsafe and closed by Clarksville Park and Recreation officials.||Fencing was blown away along the top bleachers. ||Clarksville Park and Recreation officials said that there were cracks in the bleacher's cinder block supports. They also found that portions of the structure had moved at least 2 inches by the tornado.

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

3 minutes of warning. NWS OHX issued a tornado warning for this county at 04:54 UTC, 3 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 05:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 21:47 UTC and running to 05:00 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:53 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.

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

The live radar over the trackEvery 2008 tornado in TennesseeEvery tornado in Tennessee since 1950Warnings in force in Tennessee nowThe forecast where you are

39 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.