EF1 tornado, Thorn Hill to Luther, Tennessee, May 8, 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

May 8, 2009

Touchdown

7:36 PM EDT (23:36 UTC)

Lifted

7:42 PM EDT (23:42 UTC)

On the ground

6 minutes

Path length

9.4 miles (15.2 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$15,000

Counties

Grainger and Hancock counties

Touchdown point

36.360, -83.420

Lift-off point

36.446, -83.287

Record number

0905081736-01

A highly organized mesoscale convective vorticity maximum with strong low to mid tropospheric flow coupled with moderate instability resulted in the development of discrete supercellular thunderstorms. These storms produced a long-lived tornado across Northeast Tennessee late in the afternoon and another long duration tornado across Southwest Virginia later in the evening.

A spotter reported a tornado on the ground moving east toward Thorn Hill. The tornado touched down 5.2 miles northeast of Thorn Hill in Grainger county then crossed into Hancock county. Wind speed was estimated at 80 mph in Grainger county at EF0 intensity. Damage included the downing and uprooting of numerous trees in Grainger county.

EF0 tornado crossed over into Hancock County, Tennessee, ending about three miles west of Treadway along an east northeast path and intensified to EF1 with a maximum wind speed at 90 mph. Damage included downing of numerous trees with significant damage to several barns and outbuildings. Most single family homes along the path had roof damage.

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

10 minutes of warning. NWS MRX issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:26 UTC, 10 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:42 UTC and running to 04:00 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 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 20:17 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.

Middlesboro-Bell (1A6), 41 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Knoxville radar (KMRX), 26 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:37 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

45 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.