EF1 tornado, Cross Rd to Cairo, Tennessee, February 2, 2016

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

February 2, 2016

Touchdown

4:55 PM CST (22:55 UTC)

Lifted

5:03 PM CST (23:03 UTC)

On the ground

8 minutes

Path length

2.6 miles (4.2 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

1

Property damage

$150,000

County

Crockett County

Touchdown point

35.767, -89.168

Lift-off point

35.801, -89.146

Record number

1602021655-01

20 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS MEG, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 99 mph.

• Center-pivot irrigation unit damaged.

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

Low pressure moved from the Southern Plains toward the Mid-Mississippi Valley while a cold front pushed east toward the Mid-South on February 2, 2016. The airmass across the Mid-South was moist and unstable ahead of the front. A couple rounds of showers and thunderstorms occurred. The first round produced heavy rain and some flash flooding in the Memphis Metropolitan area around noon. Another round of showers and thunderstorms developed along the cold front as it moved through the region during the late afternoon. A weak tornado occurred in Crockett County as this round moved through.

The tornado snapped or uprooted several trees southwest of, and at the Crockett County Golf Club. It caused roof damage to a mobile home and a permanent structure just south of Highway 412. Two tractor trailers were overturned on Highway 412, with one driver injured. North of Highway 412, the tornado damaged several storage sheds and caused roof damage to several homes. The tornado then crossed Highway 88 and caused roof damage to several buildings at the Crockett County High School. The tornado damaged additional storage sheds and a home roof on the east side of North Cavalier Drive before dissipating. Peak estimated wind was 95 mph.

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 18:23 UTC and running to 00:46 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 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 20:28 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 Memphis radar (KNQA), 81 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:53 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 2016 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.