Tornadoes · United States · Tennessee · 2017
EF1 tornado, Howley, Tennessee, July 5, 2017
This EF1 tornado ran 1.5 miles across Carroll County on July 5, 2017, touching down at 6:58 PM CDT and reaching 200 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $750,000 of property damage.
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 5, 2017
- Touchdown
- 6:58 PM CDT (23:58 UTC)
- Lifted
- 7:02 PM CDT (00:02 UTC)
- On the ground
- 4 minutes
- Path length
- 1.5 miles (2.5 km)
- Path width
- 200 yards (183 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $750,000
- County
- Carroll County
- Touchdown point
- 35.866, -88.552
- Lift-off point
- 35.883, -88.534
- Record number
- 1707051758-01
The damage survey
24 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 110 mph.
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 passing upper level disturbance generated a line of severe thunderstorms that were capable of producing damaging winds and a brief weak tornado across portions of west Tennessee during the early evening hours of July 5th.
A brief EF-1 tornado of 100 to 105 mph winds occurred in southwest Carroll County Wednesday evening between the communities of Cedar Grove and Huntingdon. This tornado produced widespread tree damage, mainly along and east of Highway 70 from Highway 424 northeast to Water Tower Road. In addition to the tree damage, several homes and single wide mobile homes sustained damage, primarily to roof structures. Overall approximately 15-20 buildings and outbuildings were damaged by this tornado.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20:43 UTC | 21:15 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | MEG |
| 00:47 UTC | 01:07 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | MEG |
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 forecast that day
The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Marginal Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:44 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 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.
Little Rock, AR (KBYH), 00:00Z
0.0 hours before the tornado, 173 km from the path. July 6, 2017.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 342 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -36 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 2073 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1130 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 24 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 17 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 103 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 119 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.1
- Supercell composite
- 3.2
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 6.6 K/km
The surface observations
Huntingdon (HZD), 25 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (kt) | Pressure (mb) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22:15 UTC | 78.8 | 75.2 | 120° 3 kt | 1016.6 | ||
| 22:35 UTC | 78.8 | 75.2 | 130° 6 kt | 1015.9 | ||
| 22:55 UTC | 78.8 | 75.2 | 110° 8 kt | 1015.2 | ||
| 23:15 UTC | 77 | 73.4 | 100° 5 kt | 1015.6 | ||
| 23:35 UTC | 77 | 75.2 | 4 kt | 1015.2 | ||
| 23:55 UTC | 77 | 75.2 | 4 kt | 1014.9 | BR | |
| 00:35 UTC | 73.4 | 71.6 | 4 kt | 14 | 1016.6 | |
| 00:55 UTC | 73.4 | 71.6 | 20° 5 kt | 1016.3 | BR | |
| 01:15 UTC | 73.4 | 71.6 | 0° 0 kt | 1015.9 | ||
| 01:35 UTC | 73.4 | 71.6 | 0° 0 kt | 1016.3 | ||
| 01:55 UTC | 73.4 | 71.6 | 0° 0 kt | 1016.6 |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
The radar
The Memphis radar (KNQA), 134 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:59 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.
What was reported nearby
Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Report | Where | County | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23:58 UTC | TORNADO | 3 W Middle Fork | Carroll, TN | A BRIEF TORNADO OCCURRED IN SOUTHWEST CARROLL COUNTY WEDNESDAY EVENING BETWEEN THE COMMUNITIES OF HUNTINGDON AND CEDAR GROVE. THIS TORNADO PRODUCED WIDESPREAD TREE DAMAGE...MAINLY ALONG AND EAST OF HIGHWAY 70 FROM HIGHWA |
| 00:00 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Cedar Grove | Carroll, TN | SEVERAL TREES DOWN.SOME TREES FELL ON HOUSES AND ARE BLOCKING ROADS. HIGHWAY 70 BETWEEN FLAT BOTTOM RD AND 424 HAS THE MOST DAMAGE. TREES DOWN ALONG HIGHWAY 70 BETWEEN CEDAR GROVE AND HUNTINGDON. POSSIBLE DAMAGE TO A TRA |
| 00:00 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Cedar Grove | Carroll, TN | SEVERAL TREES DOWN.SOME TREES FELL ON HOUSES AND SOME ARE BLOCKING ROADS. HIGHWAY 70 BETWEEN FLAT BOTTOM RD AND 424 HAS THE MOST DAMAGE. TREES DOWN ALONG HIGHWAY 70 BETWEEN CEDAR GROVE AND HUNTINGDON. POSSIBLE DAMAGE TO |
| 00:00 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | N Cedar Grove | Carroll, TN | 15 STRUCTURES A COMBINATION OF SHEDS, HOUSES AND TRAILER HOMES DAMAGED BEWTEEN FLAT BOTTOM ROAD AND WATER TOWER ROAD ALONG HIGHWAY 70. |
| 00:00 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Ne Cedar Grove | Carroll, TN | TRAILOR PARK WAS EXTESIVELY DAMAGED WITH ROOFS AND PORCHES RIPPED AWAY. |
| 00:00 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Ne Cedar Grove | Carroll, TN | LARGE TREES DOWN BLOCKING WATER TOWER ROAD. |
| 00:15 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Huntingdon | Carroll, TN | THE SONIC FAST FOOD DRIVE THROUGH AWNING TORN PARTIALLY OFF. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2017 tornado in TennesseeEvery tornado in Tennessee since 1950Warnings in force in Tennessee nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of July 5, 2017
2 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
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.