EF2 tornado, Cassville to Sparta, Tennessee, March 23, 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

March 23, 2011

Touchdown

6:54 PM CDT (23:54 UTC)

Lifted

7:06 PM CDT (00:06 UTC)

On the ground

12 minutes

Path length

9.0 miles (14.5 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$350,000

County

White County

Touchdown point

35.960, -85.639

Lift-off point

35.913, -85.490

Record number

1103231754-01

During the afternoon through early evening hours on Wednesday, March 23rd, as a strong low pressure system moved across the Ohio Valley Region, an associated strong cold front approached and moved across Middle Tennessee. This resulted in a severe weather outbreak across much of the mid state. Three confirmed tornadoes, one of which was an EF2, multiple funnel cloud and hail reports, along with a couple of thunderstorm wind damage events, occurred across this area.

Damage began near the intersection of Indian Mound Road and Old Smithville Highway. Hundreds of trees were uprooted or snapped along a nearly continuous 9 mile path. Three homes had complete roof loss and a mobile home was completely destroyed with debris scattered over a large area. Around a dozen barns and outbuildings were destroyed. The last evidence of damage was just southwest of downtown Sparta on Iris Drive. Maximum wind speeds associated with this tornado were estimated to be around 115 mph.

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

2 minutes of warning. NWS OHX issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:52 UTC, 2 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 21:10 UTC and running to 01:52 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 19:41 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 Nashville radar (KOHX), 96 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:54 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

5 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.