EF1 tornado, Sugar Hill to Blondy, Tennessee, March 27, 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

March 27, 2017

Touchdown

6:12 PM CDT (23:12 UTC)

Lifted

6:32 PM CDT (23:32 UTC)

On the ground

20 minutes

Path length

9.8 miles (15.7 km)

Path width

500 yards (457 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$110,000

Counties

Lewis and Perry counties

Touchdown point

35.556, -87.676

Lift-off point

35.582, -87.508

Record number

1703271712-01

20 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.

• Roof panel thrown to the north.
• Uprooted tree facing northwest.
• Trees uprooted on McCord Hollow road
• Several trees uprooted and large branches snapped

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

Numerous showers and thunderstorms, many of which were strong to severe and included a few supercells, moved across Middle Tennessee during the afternoon and evening hours on Monday, March 27. Several reports of large hail up to 3 inches in diameter and wind damage to trees and buildings were received across the area, and one EF1 tornado was confirmed to touch down in Perry and Lewis Counties.

This EF-1 tornado touched down in a forested area in extreme eastern Perry County north of Stanley Hinson Road then moved northeast, blowing down numerous trees before crossing Highway 412 into Lewis County. The tornado strengthened as it continued northeast, snapping and uprooting hundreds of hardwood and softwood trees and causing some minor roof and outbuilding damage on McCord Hollow Road. Continuing northeast across Goodman Branch Road, the tornado blew down more trees and passed within a mile of the tornado that occurred almost exactly one year prior on March 31, 2016. The tornado weakened as it turned more eastward, but continued to blow down dozens of trees as it crossed Darbytown Road and Coble Road. A barn was damaged on Keeton Drive and many more trees were blown down on both sides of Highway 48. Scattered trees continued to be blown down further to the east across rural forested areas before the tornado finally lifted just west of Indian Creek Road. The total path length across Perry and Lewis Counties was 9.75 miles. The damage summary, beginning and ending times, path length, and path width of this tornado were updated in July 2019 based on newly available high resolution satellite imagery in Google Earth.

This EF-1 tornado touched down in a forested area in extreme eastern Perry County north of Stanley Hinson Road then moved northeast, blowing down numerous trees before crossing Highway 412 into Lewis County. The tornado strengthened as it continued northeast, snapping and uprooting hundreds of hardwood and softwood trees and causing some minor roof and outbuilding damage on McCord Hollow Road. Continuing northeast across Goodman Branch Road, the tornado blew down more trees and passed within a mile of the tornado that occurred almost exactly one year prior on March 31, 2016. The tornado weakened as it turned more eastward, but continued to blow down dozens of trees as it crossed Darbytown Road and Coble Road. A barn was damaged on Keeton Drive and many more trees were blown down on both sides of Highway 48. Scattered trees continued to be blown down further to the east across rural forested areas before the tornado finally lifted just west of Indian Creek Road. The total path length across Perry and Lewis Counties was 9.75 miles. The damage summary, beginning and ending times, path length, and path width of this tornado were updated in July 2019 based on newly available high resolution satellite imagery in Google Earth.

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

10 minutes of warning. NWS OHX issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:02 UTC, 10 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:30 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 17:08 UTC and running to 01:00 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. The outlook in force was issued at 20:07 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.

Columbia (MRC), 37 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Nashville radar (KOHX), 119 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:11 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

5 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.