EF1 tornado, Gray, Tennessee, December 25, 2015

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

December 25, 2015

Touchdown

7:18 AM CST (13:18 UTC)

Lifted

7:19 AM CST (13:19 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.5 miles (0.8 km)

Path width

75 yards (69 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$50,000

County

Bedford County

Touchdown point

35.495, -86.410

Lift-off point

35.490, -86.403

Record number

1512250718-01

4 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 90 mph.

• Windows blown out at the Calsonic building. Signs blown down and an entry way glass door blown in with broken glass. One tree down.
• Tree branch broken off. This is the end point of the tornado.
• Garage doors blown in and out. Four tractor trailers tossed around. Partial loss of roof to the Rubbermaid facility which ships Sharpies and Expo Markers with a potential estimated loss of 5 million dollars. 75 yards wide 0.5 miles long

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

Barely over one day after a major tornado outbreak affected Tennessee and surrounding states, another round of severe storms with one tornado, wind damage, large hail, and flooding impacted Middle Tennessee on Christmas Day. One brief EF1 tornado touched down in Shelbyville, TN in Bedford County, causing minor damage.

This low end EF1 tornado started at the northwest side of the Newell Rubbermaid plant and moved east-southeast through the rest of the plant complex including the neighboring Calsonic plant. Two large sections of roof were peeled back at the Rubbermaid plant. Roof gravel was blown in all directions and damaged several company vehicles. Six empty tractor trailers were blown around and partially stacked upon each other. Several garage doors failed and at least 3 were blown into the facility. One large tree between the two facilities was blown over. At Calsonic, two windows were blown out, a carport was damaged, a glass doorway was blown in, a few tree branches were broken and metal signs were smashed to the ground. This information is from a storm survey conducted jointly by NWS Nashville and the Bedford County Emergency Management Agency on December 26.

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.

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 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 12:55 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 Northeast Alabama radar (KHTX), 69 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 13:19 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

3 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.