EF1 tornado, Moccasin to Gordonsburg, Tennessee, January 30, 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

January 30, 2013

Touchdown

2:32 AM CST (08:32 UTC)

Lifted

2:41 AM CST (08:41 UTC)

On the ground

9 minutes

Path length

9.1 miles (14.6 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$35,000

Crop damage

$100,000

Counties

Wayne and Lewis counties

Touchdown point

35.432, -87.783

Lift-off point

35.462, -87.626

Record number

1301300232-01

71 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 110 mph.

• Aerial imagery from Google Earth shows a mobile home was blown to the SSE and completely destroyed.
• Aerial imagery from Google Earth shows half of a mobile home roof was blown off with debris landing 80 yards to the SE.
• Aerial imagery from Google Earth shows several trees uprooted in this area
• Aerial imagery from Google Earth shows numerous trees uprooted in this area

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 EF1 tornado began near Green River Road just southeast of Highway 13 and moved eastward, blowing down dozens of trees along Phillips Chapel Road and Harris Road. 2 barns were heavily damaged and another barn was completely destroyed at a farm on the east end of Harris Road. Dozens of trees continued to be snapped and uprooted along the path as the tornado continued eastward into Lewis County. Aerial and street view imagery from Google Earth greatly assisted with this storm survey.

An EF1 tornado moved out of Wayne County into Lewis County where 5 power poles were snapped along Seiber Ridge Road and numerous more trees were uprooted. Aerial imagery from Google Earth greatly assisted with this storm survey.

An EF1 tornado touched down south of Hohenwald along Wildwood Road and moved eastward through rural forested areas before lifting east of Highway 20 to the south of Springer Church House Road. A mobile home had minor roof damage on Swiss Colony Road. 1 mobile home was completely destroyed, 5 mobile homes were damaged, and an outbuilding was destroyed on the south end of Kayla Lane. Another mobile home lost its roof on the east end of Colonial Road and 2 others were damaged. A house on Highway 20 just south of Grinder Creek Road suffered minor roof damage. Hundreds of trees were snapped and uprooted all along the path. Aerial and street view imagery from Google Earth greatly assisted with this storm survey.

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

9 minutes of warning. NWS OHX issued a tornado warning for this county at 08:23 UTC, 9 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 09:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 04:10 UTC and running to 10:00 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 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), 136 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 08:32 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.