EF2 tornado, Cumberland Spgs to Ridgeville, Tennessee, February 28, 2011

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 mph

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

3. EF2111 to 135 mphthis tornado

   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

EF2

Date

February 28, 2011

Touchdown

12:18 PM CST (18:18 UTC)

Lifted

12:25 PM CST (18:25 UTC)

On the ground

7 minutes

Path length

16.1 miles (25.9 km)

Path width

600 yards (549 m)

Deaths

1

Injuries

4

Property damage

$40,000

Counties

Franklin and Moore counties

Touchdown point

35.309, -86.105

Lift-off point

35.270, -86.330

Record number

1102281218-01

A powerful cold front and upper level system combined with a marginally unstable, moist and highly sheared environment to produce severe thunderstorms and a tornado. A quasi-linear convective system (QLCS) developed during the morning hours across the mid South and raced eastward at 50 to 60 mph. The storms arrived in southern middle Tennessee around midday, with one storm intensifying into a tornadic supercell. A strong tornado of EF-2 strength tracked from just east of Lynchburg (Moore County) to just northeast of Estill Springs (Franklin County), killing a 79 year old male (near Estill Springs) in his mobile home and injuring four others.

An EF-2 tornado with peak winds of 600 yards initially touched down southeast of downtown Lynchburg. The most significant damage occurred from eastern Moore county. In these locations mobile homes were destroyed, multiple power poles and trees were snapped, and homes sustained significant roof damage.

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

6 minutes of warning. NWS HUN issued a tornado warning for this county at 18:12 UTC, 6 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 18:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 12:00 UTC and running to 18:31 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, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 16:30 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.

The Northeast Alabama radar (KHTX), 42 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 18:16 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 2011 tornado in TennesseeEvery tornado in Tennessee since 1950Warnings in force in Tennessee nowThe forecast where you are

25 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.