EF2 tornado, Poplar Hill to Manila, Tennessee, November 30, 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 mph

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. EF2111 to 135 mphthis tornado

   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

EF2

Date

November 30, 2016

Touchdown

1:20 AM EST (06:20 UTC)

Lifted

1:30 AM EST (06:30 UTC)

On the ground

10 minutes

Path length

11.3 miles (18.2 km)

Path width

200 yards (183 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

20

County

McMinn County

Touchdown point

35.405, -84.637

Lift-off point

35.509, -84.482

Record number

1611300020-01

1 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS MRX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 135 mph.

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

A strong upper level system moved through the Eastern United States late Tuesday into early Wednesday. The associated surface low pressure system pressed north northeast from the Lower Mississippi across the Mid South on its way across the Lower Ohio Valley. While there were reports of damaging straight line wind with some of the thunderstorms generated ahead of the system cold front, the main and concentrated areas of damage were associated with tornadic supercell thunderstorms. The supercell storms developed in an area of strong shear and sufficient; albeit weak instability. Tornadoes formed in a zone favorable to rotating thunderstorm updrafts just north of a warm frontal boundary across the Tennessee Valley of Alabama northeast through Southeast Tennessee. Three tornadoes developed during the early morning hours on Wednesday, November 30th; impacting McMinn, Polk, Marion, and Sequatchie counties.

The tornado developed near the intersection of county road 700 and 705 where some minor tree damage was observed. The tornado maintained its intensity as it paralleled Cedar Springs Road and damaged a covered walkway just to the south of Athens along South Jackson Street. It continued to the northeast with the most catastrophic damage along its path occurring along Old Athens Madisonville Road where a few mobile homes were destroyed. The tornado weakened as it moved to the northeast with mostly tree damage; eventually lifting around the intersection of TN-307 and County Road 350. Two people were killed and twenty were injured as the tornado moved across the county.

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

26 minutes of warning. NWS MRX issued a tornado warning for this county at 05:54 UTC, 26 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 06:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 06:00 UTC and running to 08:55 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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 05:23 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.

Athens (MMI), 7 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Knoxville radar (KMRX), 131 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 06:21 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

16 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.