EF0 tornado, Kingfield to Bingham, Tennessee, April 3, 2015

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

April 3, 2015

Touchdown

5:22 PM CDT (22:22 UTC)

Lifted

5:30 PM CDT (22:30 UTC)

On the ground

8 minutes

Path length

5.6 miles (9.0 km)

Path width

75 yards (69 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$20,000

County

Williamson County

Touchdown point

35.915, -87.042

Lift-off point

35.916, -86.942

Record number

1504031622-01

30 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.

• Roof partially blown off to the west
• Tree blown down across Parker Branch Road knocking down power lines
• Several trees snapped off in valley
• Carport blown north down hillside

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

The largest severe weather event during the spring of 2015 in Middle Tennessee affected the region during the afternoon and evening hours on April 3. Scattered to numerous showers and thunderstorms, including some supercells and bow echoes, developed ahead of a cold front approaching the area, and brought widespread damaging winds, large hail, and one EF0 tornado.

An NWS storm survey found a small EF0 tornado with max winds of 80 mph intermittently touched down in the Kingfield community of western Williamson County, then moved eastward north of Leipers Fork before lifting west of Franklin. A carport was blown down a hillside on Hargrove Road, and a couple of homes and outbuildings received minor roof damage on Wilkins Branch Road. A few trees were blown down along Old Highway 96 and in the hills south of Parker Branch Road. The worst damage occurred near the intersection of Parker Branch Road and Old Hillsboro Road, where two homes had considerable roof damage and numerous trees were snapped and uprooted. A few more trees were blown down on Boxley Valley Road, McMillan Road, and Boxley View Lane before the tornado lifted.

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.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 17:16 UTC and running to 23:44 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 Enhanced Risk, with a 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:53 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), 53 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:24 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 2015 tornado in TennesseeEvery tornado in Tennessee since 1950Warnings in force in Tennessee nowThe forecast where you are

4 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.