EF0 tornado, Woods Vly, Tennessee, November 18, 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

November 18, 2017

Touchdown

3:52 PM CST (21:52 UTC)

Lifted

3:53 PM CST (21:53 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

1.2 miles (1.9 km)

Path width

75 yards (69 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$15,000

Crop damage

$5,000

County

Dickson County

Touchdown point

36.300, -87.410

Lift-off point

36.309, -87.392

Record number

1711181552-01

35 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 85 mph.

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

A line of strong to severe thunderstorms, known as a Quasi-Linear Convective System (or QLCS), moved rapidly across Middle Tennessee at 60 mph from west to east between 3 PM and 7 PM CST on Saturday, November 18, 2017. This line of storms produced widespread damaging winds in many counties generally along and north of the I-40 corridor. In addition to the damaging winds, the QLCS produced 4 confirmed tornadoes which damaged numerous homes and other buildings.

A small, brief EF-0 tornado touched down southwest of the intersection of Little Barton's Creek Road and Woods Valley Road northwest of Cumberland Furnace and moved northeast. A home suffered minor roof damage, a travel trailer was blown onto its side, and a carport was destroyed on Woods Valley Road. Just east of Woods Valley Road on Little Barton's Creek Road, one barn was destroyed, another barn was damaged, and an outbuilding was heavily damaged by a fallen tree. Another home and an adjacent barn further to the east suffered minor roof damage. Dozens of trees were snapped or uprooted in all directions along the path. Maximum winds were estimated at 80 mph. The beginning point, ending point, and path length of this tornado were adjusted slightly in May 2019 based on new high resolution satellite imagery available in Google Earth.

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 severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 18:37 UTC and running to 22:49 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, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:49 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

15 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.