EF0 tornado, Scribner to Bryant Station, Tennessee, March 18, 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

March 18, 2013

Touchdown

11:22 AM CDT (16:22 UTC)

Lifted

11:27 AM CDT (16:27 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

3.7 miles (6.0 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$50,000

County

Maury County

Touchdown point

35.495, -86.946

Lift-off point

35.508, -86.882

Record number

1303181022-01

9 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 77 mph.

• Most of the sheet metal roof of an old barn on Joe Reeves Road was blown off
• Several cedar trees were snapped and uprooted in all different directions at the end of Bud Haskin Road
• A few trees and large tree limbs were blown down on Mcknight Road
• A few trees and large tree limbs were blown down along Mcknight Road

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

As a line of showers and thunderstorms moved west to east across Middle Tennessee during the morning hours of Monday, March 18th, some of these thunderstorms reached severe thresholds, resulting in large hail, thunderstorm wind damage, and the occurence of four different tornadoes. Three of these tornadoes were EF0 rated, with the fourth tornado rated an EF1 tornado, with a path length that went across three different counties. Two lightning strikes on school buildings across the mid state occurred also with these thunderstorms.

An EF0 Tornado with maximum sustained winds of 80 mph touched down on McKnight Road east of Culleoka where several trees were blown down and one mobile home had minor siding damage. A few more trees were blown down on Old Brush Creek Road. Numerous trees were snapped or uprooted in all directions along side roads north of Old Brush Creek Road. A few more trees were blown down on Joe Reeves Road and an old barn lost part of its roof.

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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 13:35 UTC and running to 18:16 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 12:53 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), 89 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 16:20 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

9 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.