EF1 tornado, Mt Herman to Gray, Tennessee, April 5, 2017

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

April 5, 2017

Touchdown

3:47 PM CDT (20:47 UTC)

Lifted

3:55 PM CDT (20:55 UTC)

On the ground

8 minutes

Path length

7.1 miles (11.4 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$50,000

County

Bedford County

Touchdown point

35.413, -86.507

Lift-off point

35.489, -86.426

Record number

1704051447-01

48 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 95 mph.

• Start of tornado. Likely lower wind speed, more like 60mph
• Split Bradford pear tree with other tree branches down
• Multiple cedars uprooted along with a couple snapped
• House untouched. cedar trees uprooted

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

A powerful spring storm system moved across the eastern US on Wednesday, April 5, 2017. This system brought numerous severe thunderstorms to many states from the Midwest into the Southeast, with hundreds of reports of large hail, wind damage, and numerous tornadoes. Across Middle Tennessee, several supercell thunderstorms developed along and ahead of a cold front that moved west to east across the area, with dozens of reports of large hail up to golf ball size, wind damage, and two confirmed EF1 tornadoes. In addition, strong westerly gradient winds measured up to 50 mph behind the cold front caused wind damage in several areas.

A rare and unique anticyclonic landspout tornado touched down in southern Bedford County off a left splitting supercell and an anticyclonic rear flank downdraft coupled with strong southwesterly surface flow. The damage path started off of Charlie Russell Road consisting of uprooted and snapped trees as well as a barn sustaining significant damage from rear flank downdraft winds. The path continued northeast uprooting and snapping dozens of hardwood and softwood trees. Off of Highway 412, several homes sustained roof damage as well as loss of underpinning off of a couple of mobile homes. Additional barn damage was observed on Womack Road along with several more trees uprooted and snapped. Significant tree damage occurred off of Narrows Lane including a 4ft wide oak tree snapped at the base. The tornado then weakened and continued northeast across Highway 82 and Highway 130 blowing down more trees. Entering Shelbyville, the tornado weakened further, but still blew a boat across a parking lot, shifted a few cars, and tossed a dumpster at the Davis Estates Apartments on Anthony Lane, then blew down some playground equipment at Coopers Steel Manufacturing on Hillcrest Drive before lifting. The tornado was widely viewed and documented on video by numerous residents of the area.||NWS Nashville greatly appreciates the opinions and expertise from NWS Norman and NWS Huntsville in determining the characteristics of this very unique event.

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 18:52 UTC and running to 22:48 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 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:59 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.

Shelbyville (SYI), 12 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Northeast Alabama radar (KHTX), 68 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:45 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 2017 tornado in TennesseeEvery tornado in Tennessee since 1950Warnings in force in Tennessee nowThe forecast where you are

23 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.