EF1 tornado, Glencliff to (Bna)Nashville Metro, Tennessee, April 2, 2009

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

April 2, 2009

Touchdown

4:00 PM CDT (21:00 UTC)

Lifted

4:05 PM CDT (21:05 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

2.0 miles (3.2 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

1

Property damage

$500,000

County

Davidson County

Touchdown point

36.113, -86.710

Lift-off point

36.146, -86.702

Record number

0904021500-01

A line of showers and thunderstorms,ahead of an approaching surface front and upper level trough, moved west to east from the southwest during the early afternoon hours through the late evening hours. Some of these thunderstorms were severe, and caused a tornado in Davidson County and flash flooding across mainly western portions of Middle Tennessee.

An EF1 Tornado with maximum estimated wind speed around 90 to 100 mph touched down in the Nashville Metro Area.||The tornado touched down south of Briley Parkway and Murfreesboro |Pike, where it caused minor damage to houses and downed several|trees. As the tornado crossed Murfreesboro Pike and it damaged several |businesses, some significantly. The tornado continued north and |caused minor damage to houses and downed trees, some very large,|then crossed Interstate 40 west of Briley Parkway and lifted near Elm Hill Pike. The path length of the tornado was almost two miles, and the maximum width was 50 to 100 yards wide. One minor injury was reported but no additional information was provided. Additional details provided by the public, trained spotters, and amateur radio included |2 overturned semi-trucks at Interstate 40 and Briley Parkway and at 1204 Murfreesboro Road roof damage to a building with 20 to 30 cars damaged in the parking lot. A newspaper reported an exterior wall collapsed onto a car at Bridgestone Firestone Tire Store, with two large power lines snapped and leaning over Murfreesboro Road and tires were tossed more than 300 yards.

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

4 minutes of warning. NWS OHX issued a tornado warning for this county at 20:56 UTC, 4 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 21:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 19:40 UTC and running to 23:02 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 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 20:02 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.

Nashville Metro (BNA), 2 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Nashville radar (KOHX), 18 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:59 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.

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 2009 tornado in TennesseeEvery tornado in Tennessee since 1950Warnings in force in Tennessee nowThe forecast where you are

14 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.