EF0 tornado, Belfast to Talley, Tennessee, March 9, 2017

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 9, 2017

Touchdown

11:32 PM CST (05:32 UTC)

Lifted

11:36 PM CST (05:36 UTC)

On the ground

4 minutes

Path length

3.1 miles (5.1 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$25,000

County

Marshall County

Touchdown point

35.415, -86.705

Lift-off point

35.411, -86.649

Record number

1703092332-01

41 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS OHX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 95 mph.

• All damage in same direction
• Damage appears to be all in the same direction.
• Roof (not very well attached) all in same direction. Roof panel flown 3/4 miles away.
• old decrepit warehouse destroyed thanks to funneled straight lime winds

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

Another significant severe weather event struck Middle Tennessee just one week after the severe weather outbreak on March 1. During this event, a line of strong to severe thunderstorms with embedded circulations, known as a Quasi-Linear Convective System (or QLCS), moved rapidly southeastward across Middle Tennessee at 60-70 mph during the late evening hours on March 9, 2017 into the early morning hours on March 10, 2017. Ahead of the QLCS, isolated severe storms developed and produced large hail in many parts of Middle Tennessee during the evening on March 9. As the QLCS moved across the region, widespread damaging winds were reported in nearly every county along and west of I-24 across Middle Tennessee, with winds estimated up to 100 mph in some areas. These intense downbursts winds damaged numerous homes and businesses, and caused 1 injury in Warren County. In addition to the damaging winds, one confirmed tornado also touched down in Marshall County.

A brief EF-0 tornado touched down just south of the Belfast community, on the leading edge of the large downburst that struck southern Marshall County. The tornado damaged roofs on a few houses on Fishing Ford Road, destroyed several outbuildings, and snapped several trees. A large tree fell onto a home on Highway 431 and several more trees were snapped and uprooted. The tornado continued eastward where additional damage occurred to several homes, outbuildings, and trees on Valley Lane, Liberty Valley Road, and Pickle Road before the tornado quickly lifted before crossing the Bedford County line.

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

1 minute of warning. NWS OHX issued a tornado warning for this county at 05:31 UTC, 1 minute before the tornado touched down, in force until 06:00 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 02:38 UTC and running to 07:00 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 Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 00:51 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.

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

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.