Tornadoes · United States · Tennessee · 2015

EF1 tornado, Notchy Creek to Mt Harmony, Tennessee, July 14, 2015

Name: EF1 tornado, Notchy Creek to Mt Harmony, Tennessee, July 14, 2015
Start: 2015-07-14T20:55:00.000Z
End: 2015-07-14T21:07:00.000Z
Location: Notchy Creek to Mt Harmony, Tennessee

From Notchy Creek to Mt Harmony, this EF1 tornado ran 7.8 miles across Monroe County on July 14, 2015, touching down at 4:55 PM EDT and reaching 200 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.

EF065 to 85 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
EF4166 to 200 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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: July 14, 2015
Touchdown: 4:55 PM EDT (20:55 UTC)
Lifted: 5:07 PM EDT (21:07 UTC)
On the ground: 12 minutes
Path length: 7.8 miles (12.6 km)
Path width: 200 yards (183 m)
Deaths: 0
Injuries: 0
County: Monroe County
Touchdown point: 35.464, -84.382
Lift-off point: 35.357, -84.336
Record number: 1507141455-01

The damage survey

61 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS MRX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 104 mph.

power line pole blown over
damage to house from oak tree uprooted wet ground
scattered damage throughout
numerous trees layed down and along hwy 68 s

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

What the Weather Service recorded

A continuation of severe weather from the previous day involved convection which developed early in the day in association with an overnight outflow boundary followed by the main event involving a meso-scale convective system driving southeast into a moderately to highly unstable air mass. An amplifying upper level trough building east through the Ohio Valley added sufficient wind energy for strong and organized storm development. Late in the day into the evening, more storms developed ahead of the system cold front as it moved southeast toward the Southern Appalachian region.

Tornado tracked just west of New Highway 68. Large trees were snapped or uprooted in a valley along Gamble Gap Road to Mecca Pike. Extensive tree and structural |damage occurred near Old State Road and Gamble Gap Road where it is believed the strongest winds occurred.

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

What forecasters said that day

The local office's own words before the tornado touched down, as it sent them, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service text.

NWS Morristown, TN wrote its last area forecast discussion before the tornado touched down at Jul 14, 3:49 PM EDT, 1 hour 6 minutes earlier.

Area forecast discussion, Jul 14, 3:49 PM EDT, 1 hour 6 minutes before

AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE MORRISTOWN TN
349 PM EDT TUE JUL 14 2015

.SHORT TERM (TONIGHT AND WEDNESDAY)...HRRRR CORRECTLY FORETOLD OF
A LINE OF CONVECTION WHICH WOULD FORM ACROSS NORTHERN MIDDLE
THROUGH NORTHEAST TENNESSEE EARLY THIS AFTERNOON. CONVECTION IS
FORMING IN AN AREA OF MAJOR LEAGUE MOISTURE TRANSPORT AND
CONVERGENCE. UPPER DIFFLUENCE IS LEADING TO BACKBUILDING ACROSS THE
CUMBERLAND PLATEAU. HEAVY RAIN CONTINUING OVER PARTS OF SOUTHWEST
VIRGINIA AND NORTHEAST THROUGH CENTRAL EAST TENNESSEE...WHICH HAVE
ALREADY RECEIVED AROUND TWO TO AS MUCH AS FIVE INCHES OF RAIN
SHOULD RESULT IN SOME MORE FLOODING. THEREFORE...ISSUED FLASH FLOOD
WATCH FOR CONVECTION WHICH COULD CONTINUE ACROSS THESE AREAS WELL
INTO THE NIGHT. ADDITIONALLY...EXCELLENT SHEAR AND VERY HIGH CAPE
VALUES ARE ALLOWING FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS.
RADAR INDICATES THAT SOME OF THE STORMS ARE SUPERCELLS WITH
ROTATION SIGNATURES PRESENT. SEVERE CONVECTION WILL CONTINUE SLOWLY
SOUTH THROUGH EAST TENNESSEE THROUGH THE EVENING HOURS. SHOULD BE A
BETTER DAY ON WEDNESDAY WITH DRIER AIR BUILDING IN BEHIND THE
EASTERN U.S. UPPER TROUGH.

.LONG TERM (WEDNESDAY NIGHT THROUGH TUESDAY)...STILL LOOKS LIKE A
BREAK IN THUNDERSTORM ACTIVITY WEDNESDAY NIGHT THROUGH MOST OF
FRIDAY. A WEAK FRONT TO SLIDE SOUTH INTO THE SOUTHERN STATES
WEDNESDAY NIGHT AND THURSDAY WITH A DRIER AIR MASS REPLACING THE
WARM HUMID AIR MASS THAT HAS BEEN PLAGUING THE REGION THE LAST
SEVERAL DAYS. LOWS WEDNESDAY NIGHT DROPPING INTO THE 60S TO NEAR 70
AT CHATTANOOGA. THURSDAY TEMPERATURES WILL STAY SLIGHTLY COOLER IN
THE 80S TO NEAR 90 AT CHATTANOOGA AS HIGH PRESSURE BUILDS DOWN
BEHIND FRONT FOLLOWED BY ANOTHER NIGHT IN THE 60S. FRIDAY THE UPPER
RIDGE OVER THE SOUTHEAST AND SOUTH CENTRAL STATES BEGINS TO SHIFT
BACK EAST AND NORTH. DEW POINT TEMPERATURES WILL RISE AND HIGH
TEMPERATURES REBOUND TO THE LOWER TO MID 90S AS FRONT MOVES BACK NE
AS A WARM FRONT. THE AIR MASS WILL BECOME UNSTABLE ENOUGH FOR
AFTERNOON AND EVENING SHOWERS AND THUNDERSTORMS. FROM SATURDAY
THROUGH MONDAY AFTERNOON AND EVENING SHOWERS AND STORMS WILL
CONTINUE BECOMING A LITTLE MORE NUMEROUS EACH DAY. A COLD FRONT
WILL APPROACH THE OHIO AND TN VALLEYS TUESDAY. IF THIS FRONT
LINGERS IN THE AREA THERE COULD BE SOME MORE CONCERNS FOR HEAVY
RAINFALL AT MID WEEK.

&&

.PRELIMINARY POINT TEMPS/POPS...
CHATTANOOGA AIRPORT, TN             75  91  70  91 /  60  30  10  10
KNOXVILLE MCGHEE TYSON AIRPORT, TN  73  88  68  88 /  60  20  10  10
OAK RIDGE, TN                       73  87  68  87 /  60  20  10  10
TRI CITIES AIRPORT, TN              68  84  62  86 /  60  20  10  10

&&

.MRX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES...
NC...NONE.
TN...FLASH FLOOD WATCH THROUGH LATE TONIGHT FOR ANDERSON-BLOUNT SMOKY
     MOUNTAINS-CAMPBELL-CLAIBORNE-COCKE SMOKY MOUNTAINS-GRAINGER-
     HAMBLEN-HANCOCK-HAWKINS-JEFFERSON-JOHNSON-KNOX-LOUDON-
     MORGAN-NW BLOUNT-NORTH SEVIER-NORTHWEST CARTER-NORTHWEST
     COCKE-NORTHWEST GREENE-NORTHWEST MONROE-ROANE-SCOTT TN-
     SEVIER SMOKY MOUNTAINS-SOUTHEAST CARTER-SOUTHEAST GREENE-
     SOUTHEAST MONROE-SULLIVAN-UNICOI-UNION-WASHINGTON TN.

VA...FLASH FLOOD WATCH THROUGH LATE TONIGHT FOR LEE-RUSSELL-SCOTT-
     WASHINGTON-WISE.

&&

Hazardous weather outlook, Jul 14, 3:51 AM EDT, 13 hours 4 minutes before

HAZARDOUS WEATHER OUTLOOK
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE MORRISTOWN TN
351 AM EDT TUE JUL 14 2015

NCZ060-061-TNZ012>018-035>047-067>074-081>087-098>102-VAZ001-002-
005-006-008-150800-
CHEROKEE-CLAY-SCOTT TN-CAMPBELL-CLAIBORNE-HANCOCK-HAWKINS-
SULLIVAN-JOHNSON-MORGAN-ANDERSON-UNION-GRAINGER-HAMBLEN-
NORTHWEST COCKE-COCKE SMOKY MOUNTAINS-NORTHWEST GREENE-
SOUTHEAST GREENE-WASHINGTON TN-UNICOI-NORTHWEST CARTER-
SOUTHEAST CARTER-ROANE-LOUDON-KNOX-JEFFERSON-NW BLOUNT-
BLOUNT SMOKY MOUNTAINS-NORTH SEVIER-SEVIER SMOKY MOUNTAINS-
SEQUATCHIE-BLEDSOE-RHEA-MEIGS-MCMINN-NORTHWEST MONROE-
SOUTHEAST MONROE-MARION-HAMILTON-BRADLEY-WEST POLK-EAST POLK-LEE-
WISE-SCOTT-RUSSELL-WASHINGTON-
351 AM EDT TUE JUL 14 2015 /251 AM CDT TUE JUL 14 2015/

THIS HAZARDOUS WEATHER OUTLOOK IS FOR PORTIONS OF SOUTHWEST NORTH
CAROLINA...EAST TENNESSEE AND SOUTHWEST VIRGINIA.

.DAY ONE...TODAY AND TONIGHT...

A WEAKENING LINE OF STRONG TO SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS WILL MOVE
ACROSS MUCH OF NORTHEAST TENNESSEE AND SOUTHWEST VIRGINIA EARLY
THIS MORNING. A LOCALIZED DAMAGING WIND GUST AND HEAVY RAINFALL IS
POSSIBLE WITH THIS ACTIVITY.

A HEIGHTENED RISK FOR WIDESPREAD DAMAGING STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS WILL
EXIST WITH ANOTHER COMPLEX OF SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS THAT MAY
DEVELOP LATE THIS AFTERNOON AND EVENING ALONG AND AHEAD OF A
SOUTHWARD MOVING COLD FRONT. IN ADDITION TO THE DAMAGING WIND
THREAT...VERY LARGE HAIL AND LOCALIZED FLASH FLOODING FROM HEAVY
RAINFALL WILL ALSO BE POSSIBLE. ADDITIONALLY...THE POTENTIAL FOR A
FEW TORNADOES ALSO EXISTS.

.DAYS TWO THROUGH SEVEN...WEDNESDAY THROUGH MONDAY...

NO HAZARDOUS WEATHER IS EXPECTED AT THIS TIME.

.SPOTTER INFORMATION STATEMENT...

SPOTTER ACTIVATION MAY BE NEEDED THIS AFTERNOON AND EVENING.

In the hours before

Local storm report, Jul 14, 3:31 PM EDT, 1 hour 24 minutes before

PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE MORRISTOWN TN
331 PM EDT TUE JUL 14 2015

..TIME...   ...EVENT...      ...CITY LOCATION...     ...LAT.LON...
..DATE...   ....MAG....      ..COUNTY LOCATION..ST.. ...SOURCE....
            ..REMARKS..

0320 PM     HAIL             NORRIS                  36.21N 84.06W
07/14/2015  M1.00 INCH       ANDERSON           TN   TRAINED SPOTTER

&&

Local storm report, Jul 14, 3:35 PM EDT, 1 hour 20 minutes before

PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE MORRISTOWN TN
335 PM EDT TUE JUL 14 2015

..TIME...   ...EVENT...      ...CITY LOCATION...     ...LAT.LON...
..DATE...   ....MAG....      ..COUNTY LOCATION..ST.. ...SOURCE....
            ..REMARKS..

0330 PM     HAIL             NEWPORT                 35.96N 83.19W
07/14/2015  E0.75 INCH       COCKE              TN   PUBLIC

            HAIL SIZE RANGED FROM 1/4 TO 3/4 INCH.

&&

Local storm report, Jul 14, 3:55 PM EDT, 1 hour before

<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
  <meta charset="utf-8">
  <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
  <title>Service Notice</title>
  <link rel="stylesheet" href="index.css">
</head>
<body>
  <main class="wrap">
    <section class="card" role="status" aria-live="polite">
      <div class="status" id="status">Temporary Notice</div>
      <h1 id="headline">This service is currently unavailable.</h1>
      <p id="message1">
        The site you requested is temporarily down for maintenance or an unexpected outage.
      </p>
      <p id="message2">
        Please try again in a few minutes.
      </p>
      <p class="small" id="detail">
        If you are an administrator, restore upstream service and remove the redirect/fallback rule when normal operations resume.
      </p>
    </section>
  </main>
  <script src="index.js"></script>
</body>
</html>

Local storm report, Jul 14, 3:59 PM EDT, 56 minutes before

<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
  <meta charset="utf-8">
  <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
  <title>Service Notice</title>
  <link rel="stylesheet" href="index.css">
</head>
<body>
  <main class="wrap">
    <section class="card" role="status" aria-live="polite">
      <div class="status" id="status">Temporary Notice</div>
      <h1 id="headline">This service is currently unavailable.</h1>
      <p id="message1">
        The site you requested is temporarily down for maintenance or an unexpected outage.
      </p>
      <p id="message2">
        Please try again in a few minutes.
      </p>
      <p class="small" id="detail">
        If you are an administrator, restore upstream service and remove the redirect/fallback rule when normal operations resume.
      </p>
    </section>
  </main>
  <script src="index.js"></script>
</body>
</html>

Local storm report, Jul 14, 4:37 PM EDT, 18 minutes before

<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
  <meta charset="utf-8">
  <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
  <title>Service Notice</title>
  <link rel="stylesheet" href="index.css">
</head>
<body>
  <main class="wrap">
    <section class="card" role="status" aria-live="polite">
      <div class="status" id="status">Temporary Notice</div>
      <h1 id="headline">This service is currently unavailable.</h1>
      <p id="message1">
        The site you requested is temporarily down for maintenance or an unexpected outage.
      </p>
      <p id="message2">
        Please try again in a few minutes.
      </p>
      <p class="small" id="detail">
        If you are an administrator, restore upstream service and remove the redirect/fallback rule when normal operations resume.
      </p>
    </section>
  </main>
  <script src="index.js"></script>
</body>
</html>

Local storm report, Jul 14, 4:39 PM EDT, 16 minutes before

<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
  <meta charset="utf-8">
  <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
  <title>Service Notice</title>
  <link rel="stylesheet" href="index.css">
</head>
<body>
  <main class="wrap">
    <section class="card" role="status" aria-live="polite">
      <div class="status" id="status">Temporary Notice</div>
      <h1 id="headline">This service is currently unavailable.</h1>
      <p id="message1">
        The site you requested is temporarily down for maintenance or an unexpected outage.
      </p>
      <p id="message2">
        Please try again in a few minutes.
      </p>
      <p class="small" id="detail">
        If you are an administrator, restore upstream service and remove the redirect/fallback rule when normal operations resume.
      </p>
    </section>
  </main>
  <script src="index.js"></script>
</body>
</html>

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

8.9 hours before the tornado, 217 km from the path. July 14, 2015.

Skew-T log-p

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.

Hodograph

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: 1670 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN: -104 J/kg
Surface CAPE: 2023 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL: 991 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear: 40 kt
0-1 km bulk shear: 25 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity: 111 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity: 105 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter: 0.6
Supercell composite: 5.8
0-3 km lapse rate: 5.5 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

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

3.1 hours after it, 217 km from the path. July 15, 2015.

Skew-T log-p

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.

Hodograph

Mixed-layer CAPE: 1470 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN: -100 J/kg
Surface CAPE: 1441 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL: 1132 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear: 42 kt
0-1 km bulk shear: 21 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity: 146 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity: 157 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter: 0.2
Supercell composite: 2.2
0-3 km lapse rate: 6.1 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Athens (MMI), 19 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)	Temp (°F)	Dew point (°F)	Wind	Gust (kt)	Pressure (mb)	Weather
00:00 UTC

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

The radar

The Knoxville radar (KMRX), 121 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:55 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 track Every 2015 tornado in Tennessee Every tornado in Tennessee since 1950 Warnings in force in Tennessee now The forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of July 14, 2015

9 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

Date	Time	Rating	Where	Path (mi)	Width (yd)	Damage
July 14	1:46 PM CDT	EF1	Pickett, TN	12.4	300	$60,000
July 14	2:49 PM CDT	EF1	Putnam, TN	2.8	150	$100,000
July 14	5:38 PM EDT	EF1	Fleming, KY	0.5	200	$50,000
July 14	6:00 PM CDT	EF1	Colbert, AL	9.1	150
July 14	6:14 PM CDT	EF1	Lawrence, AL	11.4	250
July 14	6:18 PM CDT	EF0	Lawrence, AL	2.7	50
July 14	6:35 PM CDT	EF0	Madison, AL	0.9	75
July 14	6:48 PM CDT	EF0	Morgan, AL	0.8	100
July 14	6:59 PM CDT	EF1	Morgan, AL	4.9	300

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.