EF0 tornado, Sugar Hill to Hohenwald Baker Arpt, Tennessee, March 31, 2016

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

March 31, 2016

Touchdown

4:31 PM CDT (21:31 UTC)

Lifted

4:37 PM CDT (21:37 UTC)

On the ground

6 minutes

Path length

3.5 miles (5.6 km)

Path width

350 yards (320 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$20,000

Counties

Perry and Lewis counties

Touchdown point

35.552, -87.738

Lift-off point

35.532, -87.681

Record number

1603311531-01

18 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.

• Eyewitness account of anti-cyclonic tornado.
• Small trees leaning/uprooted NE
• Trees snapped/uprooted on Darbytown Road. beginning point.
• Tree branches down. Minor roof damage to a house next door.

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

Scattered showers and thunderstorms developed across Middle Tennessee during the afternoon and evening hours on March 31. A few of the storms became supercells and produced 2 weak tornadoes along with numerous reports of large hail and wind damage. Flash flooding also occurred in parts of Lawrence and Giles Counties where thunderstorms repeatedly moved across the same areas throughout the day.

An EF1 tornado touched down about 7 miles southeast of Linden in eastern Perry County. It weakened to an EF0 in far western Lewis County before lifting. The tornado touched down in Boneyard Hollow where several hundred trees were uprooted, snapped, or downed along its path before entering Lewis County. The tornado weakened to an EF0 there and damaged an outbuilding before lifting 7 miles west of Hohenwald. At its peak, the tornado path width was 350 yards and winds were estimated at 90 mph. The tornado path length was approximately 4 miles.||This was the first tornado on record to affect Perry County in the month of March.

An EF1 tornado touched down about 7 miles southeast of Linden in eastern Perry County. It weakened to an EF0 in far western Lewis County before lifting. The tornado touched down in Boneyard Hollow where several hundred trees were uprooted, snapped, or downed along its path before entering Lewis County. The tornado weakened to an EF0 there and damaged an outbuilding before lifting 7 miles west of Hohenwald. At its peak, the tornado path width was 350 yards and winds were estimated at 90 mph. The tornado path length was approximately 4 miles.

An EF0 tornado touched down about 4 miles northwest of Hohenwald in northwestern Lewis County. It was a rare, anticyclonic tornado (rotating clockwise). A few trees were uprooted and snapped along Darbytown Road with several large branches downed as well. Minor roof damage occurred to a barn and house along its 1 mile path. At its peak, winds were estimated at 80 mph and the path width was approximately 50 yards.

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

17 minutes of warning. NWS OHX issued a tornado warning for this county at 21:14 UTC, 17 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 22:00 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 21:00 UTC and running to 00:51 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 20:00 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), 130 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:31 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

19 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.