EF0 tornado, Cassville to Walnut Grove, Tennessee, February 29, 2012

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

   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 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

EF0

Date

February 29, 2012

Touchdown

4:02 PM CST (22:02 UTC)

Lifted

4:04 PM CST (22:04 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

2.2 miles (3.5 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$10,000

County

White County

Touchdown point

36.021, -85.530

Lift-off point

36.028, -85.492

Record number

1202291602-01

63 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS OHX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 100 mph.

• The roof of a church was reportedly blown off on Browntown Road
• Aerial imagery from Google Earth shows numerous trees blown down in this area
• Several trees fell onto and knocked a home on stilts down a hillside. The home was completely destroyed with 1 fatality. Photo by NewsChannel 5.
• Aerial imagery from Google Earth shows dozens of trees blown down all around this sharp bend of Alpine Drive

Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.

A strong storm system moving across the Ohio and Tennessee Valleys caused scattered strong to severe thunderstorms to develop across eastern portions of Middle Tennessee during the afternoon hours. Two supercell thunderstorms spawned four tornadoes resulting in a total of 3 fatalities and 7 injuries. Numerous other reports of wind damage and large hail were received.

The EF1 tornado with maximum wind speeds around 95 mph moved out of DeKalb County into White County near Twilight Lane. A mobile home was damaged and a church steeple was blown off along Browntown Road near Wildcat Road, and two nearby outbuildings suffered roof damage. The roof of a barn was blown off southwest of the Browntown Road and Austin Road intersection, with debris blown for nearly one quarter mile across fields. A nearby home suffered minor roof damage. The tornado lifted just prior to reaching Austin Road.

An EF0 tornado with maximum wind speeds around 85 mph touched down near the Macedonia community northwest of Sparta, then moved rapidly eastward across Highway 111 before ending east of Walnut Grove Road. A home and barn suffered roof damage on Linville Road, and several trees were snapped or uprooted along the path.

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

16 minutes of warning. NWS OHX issued a tornado warning for this county at 21:46 UTC, 16 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 22:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 17:33 UTC and running to 00:00 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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.15 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 20:24 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), 98 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:01 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 2012 tornado in TennesseeEvery tornado in Tennessee since 1950Warnings in force in Tennessee nowThe forecast where you are

31 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.