Tornadoes · United States · Tennessee · 2013

EF1 tornado, New Tazewell to Tazewell, Tennessee, March 3, 2013

From New Tazewell to Tazewell, this EF1 tornado ran 1.4 miles across Claiborne County on March 3, 2013, touching down at 6:04 PM EST and reaching 35 yards wide. It killed nobody.

The rating scale

Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Enhanced Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.

  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.

The record

Rating
EF1
Date
March 3, 2013
Touchdown
6:04 PM EST (23:04 UTC)
Lifted
6:05 PM EST (23:05 UTC)
On the ground
1 minutes
Path length
1.4 miles (2.3 km)
Path width
35 yards (32 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Claiborne County
Touchdown point
36.429, -83.600
Lift-off point
36.433, -83.574
Record number
1303031704-01

What the Weather Service recorded

A line of thunderstorms moved through Middle Tennessee into Northeast Tennessee during the early evening hours. A National Weather Service survey team confirmed a tornado was embedded in a bowing line segment that moved across the south part of New Tazewell.

National Weather Service meteorologists surveyed a short track of tornado damage that began about one mile south of New Tazewell and ended just east of the Claiborne County High School. The wind speeds were estimated to range from 70 mph to 105 mph. The narrow path of damage contained numerous mature cedar tree trunks snapped or uprooted along the entire path. No noticeable roof damage occurred. However, some property damage was sustained when tree tops slammed into homes or downed power lines. One of the buses in the back parking lot of the high school had its windows blown out toward the end of the tornado track.

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

The warnings

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 air that afternoon

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.

Nashville Metro, TN (KBNA), 12:00Z

11.1 hours before the tornado, 272 km from the path. March 3, 2013.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Nashville Metro, TN at 12:00Z on 2013-03-03Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 0 joules per kilogram, CIN -102527, lifted condensation level 980 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Nashville Metro, TN at 12:00Z on 2013-03-03The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 17 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 18 knots.19395878Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-102527 J/kg
Surface CAPE
14 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
980 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
18 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
7 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
17 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
6 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
3.7 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Nashville Metro, TN (KBNA), 00:00Z

0.9 hours after it, 272 km from the path. March 4, 2013.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Nashville Metro, TN at 00:00Z on 2013-03-04Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 0 joules per kilogram, CIN -94058, lifted condensation level 2276 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Nashville Metro, TN at 00:00Z on 2013-03-04The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 98 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 64 knots.1939587897117136156Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-94058 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
2276 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
64 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
9 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
98 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
204 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
4.9 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Middlesboro-Bell (1A6), 24 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
21:15 UTC3216.16310° 6 kt1017.6
21:35 UTC3216.16320° 5 kt1017.6
21:55 UTC3216.88270° 4 kt1017.6
22:15 UTC32.3618280° 4 kt1017.6
22:35 UTC3217.6290° 5 kt1017.6
22:55 UTC31.8218.14310° 4 kt1017.9
23:15 UTC31.8218.32270° 3 kt1017.9
23:35 UTC31.4617.78280° 3 kt1018.3
23:55 UTC31.4618.68290° 3 kt1018.3
00:15 UTC31.118.68290° 4 kt1018.3
00:35 UTC3118.860° 0 kt1018.6
00:55 UTC31.118.50° 0 kt1018.6

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The radar

The Knoxville radar (KMRX), 34 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:59 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.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2013 tornado in TennesseeEvery tornado in Tennessee since 1950Warnings in force in Tennessee nowThe forecast where you are

What this means

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.

Sources

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.