EF2 tornado, Mt Union, Tennessee, March 2, 2012

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 2, 2012

Touchdown

5:26 PM CST (23:26 UTC)

Lifted

5:31 PM CST (23:31 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

3.7 miles (6.0 km)

Path width

880 yards (805 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

20

Property damage

$2.0 million

Crop damage

$10,000

County

Jackson County

Touchdown point

36.290, -85.493

Lift-off point

36.270, -85.554

Record number

1203021726-01

57 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS OHX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 130 mph.

• Aerial imagery from Google Earth shows numerous trees snapped and uprooted in this area
• Photo by Dodson Branch Fire Department.
• Photo by Overton County News.
• Trees crushed a detached metal garage. Photo by Overton County News.

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

On Friday, March 2nd, as a warm and moist surface based air mass occurred across Middle Tennessee in advance of a strong surface cold front, and a deep upper level trough moved closer to the mid state with strong winds aloft, a significant severe weather outbreak occurred across the mid state starting in the morning hours and lasting well into the evening hours. Multiple reports of large hail occurred across the area, with sizes ranging from penny to baseball size. Several locations reported thunderstorm wind damage. Two tornadoes, an EF1 and EF2 respectively, occurred across the mid state with some funnel clouds being reported also.

An EF2 tornado with maximum wind speeds around 125 mph began south of Sims Lane in southeast Jackson County and moved northeast across the Dodson Branch community. A home and outbuilding were damaged and several trees and power lines were blown down on Mabry School Road. Increasing to one half mile wide, the tornado moved across the Dodson Branch community along Highway 135 between Zion Road and Maynard Hollow Road. Numerous homes and outbuildings were damaged or destroyed in this area with 20 minor injuries reported. Hundreds of trees and several power lines were also blown down. The tornado continued northeast across Allen Drive, Plum Hollow Lane, and Smith Chapel Road, damaging several more homes, before entering northern Putnam County.

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

13 minutes of warning. NWS OHX issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:13 UTC, 13 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 19:20 UTC and running to 03:00 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 High Risk, with a 0.30 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 19:56 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), 93 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:25 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

69 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 70 of them

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.