EF0 tornado, Horsleys to Sunrise, Tennessee, January 30, 2013

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

January 30, 2013

Touchdown

4:01 AM CST (10:01 UTC)

Lifted

4:03 AM CST (10:03 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

1.5 miles (2.5 km)

Path width

75 yards (69 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$175,000

Crop damage

$75,000

County

Macon County

Touchdown point

36.549, -85.922

Lift-off point

36.556, -85.895

Record number

1301300401-01

10 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS OHX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 85 mph.

• A few trees were uprooted and tree limbs snapped east of Owens Road
• The sheet metal roof of an old barn was blown off causing the collapse of the weak structure
• An old home suffered significant roof damage
• A large home on Cedar Bluff Road lost numerous shingles

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

A powerful upper level trough moved across the United States from Tuesday, January 29th into Wednesday, January 30th. This system contained unusually strong winds aloft, with wind speeds of 80 mph just 2500 feet above the surface and up to 150 mph at 20,000 feet. A record warm airmass with temperatures in the 60s and 70s spread northward ahead of the system into the Tennessee and Ohio Valleys, bringing weak atmospheric instability into the region. As a powerful cold front moved eastward across Middle Tennessee during the early morning hours of January 30, the strong low level jet ahead of the front caused strong gradient winds of 40 to 65 mph at the surface, resulting in several reports of wind damage. A peak sustained south wind of 45 mph with a peak gust of 64 mph was measured by the ASOS at the Nashville International Airport around 315 AM CST in association with these intense gradient winds. A line of showers and thunderstorms known as a Quasi-Linear Convective System (QLCS) developed along the front near the Tennessee River and raced eastward through the area between 2 AM and 6 AM, producing at least 23 tornadoes and widespread wind damage. This severe weather event resulted in 1 fatality and at least 3 injuries across the Mid State. The total of 23 tornadoes made the January 30, 2013 event the largest January tornado outbreak in Middle Tennessee history. It also made January 30, 2013 the second biggest outbreak of tornadoes for any month in Middle Tennessee history.

An EF0 tornado began west of Clampit Hollow Road and moved northeast before lifting east of Marshall Lane. Dozens of trees were snapped, a couple older barns were destroyed, and an outbuilding was damaged along an approximate 1 mile path over far southwestern Macon County.

An EF0 tornado touched down in northeast Macon County about 7 miles northeast of Lafayette. The tornado touched down along Owens Road just north of Holland Road and continued northeast for 1.5 miles to just east of Jimtown Road and south of Heady Ridge Road. An older home received significant damage and a barn suffered considerable roof loss. A few hundred trees were snapped and uprooted along the path.

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

26 minutes of warning. NWS OHX issued a tornado warning for this county at 09:35 UTC, 26 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 10:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 07:49 UTC and running to 13:05 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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 06:09 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), 68 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 10:00 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

44 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.