EF1 tornado, Lois to Bakertown, Tennessee, April 19, 2013

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

April 19, 2013

Touchdown

2:09 AM CDT (07:09 UTC)

Lifted

2:15 AM CDT (07:15 UTC)

On the ground

6 minutes

Path length

4.2 miles (6.7 km)

Path width

400 yards (366 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Moore County

Touchdown point

35.228, -86.392

Lift-off point

35.267, -86.335

Record number

1304190109-01

37 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS HUN, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 105 mph.

• displaced opposite way than other trees up the road
• tree fell on a house. damage to side of a house and back porch
• line of small trees snapped at base
• limbs and part of a tree snapped

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

A quasi-linear convective system (QLCS) arrived during the early morning hours of the 19th along a vigorous cold front. The environment was characterized by high wind shear and low instability. Several reports of wind damage and an isolated tornado occurred in portions of southern middle Tennessee.

The EF-1 tornado continued its track into Moore County, Tennessee, with damage observed to mainly soft and hardwood trees along Louse Creek road. The tornado then crossed Spencer Ridge road and Goose Branch road. Large hardwood trees were snapped off at the base as the tornado moved across the ridgeline. In this area, the tornado again reached its widest path of 400 yards and greatest intensity with winds estimated at 105 mph. As the tornado continued to move northeast, it crossed Highway 50/Winchester Highway. Large trees were downed in this area with a wide swath of power lines downed here. A telecommunications pole was also snapped near the top in this area. Tree damage was noted along Norman Weisman road with a roof peeled off of a large barn. A large tree was uprooted and fell onto the back of a house on Damron road with other large trees being uprooted in the vicinity. The tornado crossed Beech Hill road before lifting on the east side of Bakertown road.

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

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.

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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 05:45 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), 43 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 07:11 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 2013 tornado in TennesseeEvery tornado in Tennessee since 1950Warnings in force in Tennessee nowThe forecast where you are

6 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.