EF2 tornado, Dotsonville to Beldon, Tennessee, February 24, 2018

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 mph

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. EF2111 to 135 mphthis tornado

   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

EF2

Date

February 24, 2018

Touchdown

9:03 PM CST (03:03 UTC)

Lifted

9:08 PM CST (03:08 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

4.1 miles (6.5 km)

Path width

200 yards (183 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

2

Property damage

$7.0 million

County

Montgomery County

Touchdown point

36.551, -87.271

Lift-off point

36.572, -87.204

Record number

1802242103-01

98 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS LMK and NWS OHX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 135 mph.

• Roof intact but completely ripped off. Thrown NE of house. Roof nailed.
• . windows out on vehicles. roofs missing on 4 duplexes
• Door lock in duplex blown open
• One side of wall collapsed. not because of debis. NE side

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

An intense storm system brought severe thunderstorms to northwest Middle Tennessee during the late afternoon and evening hours on February 24. One supercell thunderstorm developed along a warm front that moved northward across the area during the afternoon, spawning one tornado along the Kentucky/Tennessee border in Robertson County that then moved northeast into Kentucky. Later in the evening, a Quasi-Linear Convective System (QLCS) moved into the area from the west, spawning three more tornadoes across Montgomery and Robertson Counties which damaged dozens of homes and businesses and caused millions of dollars in damage. The QLCS also caused wind damage in several other counties.

An EF-1 tornado touched down near the Dotsonville community just east of Dotsonville Road and south of Bradley A. Martin Road then moved northeast. Trees were blown down and a few homes suffered minor roof damage on Gip Manning Road and Hunting Creek Road. Hundreds of trees were snapped or uprooted and 12 to 15 homes were damaged on Martin Road, Deepwood Drive, and Deepwood Trail with two homes severely damaged. Dozens of more trees were blown down east of Rustys Lane and on High Point Road. The tornado then crossed the Cumberland River, continuing to blow down trees before lifting north of Hilltop Road. Montgomery County Emergency Management estimated damage at 1 million dollars. The beginning point, ending point, and path of this tornado were adjusted slightly in May 2019 based on new high resolution satellite data available in Google Earth.

An EF-2 tornado touched down in eastern Clarksville on Dunbar Cave Road and moved east-northeast across Interstate 24 north of Rossview Road before ending on Kirkwood Road. Several trees were blown down at the beginning of the path north of Dunbar Cave Road. Continuing northeast, several outbuildings were damaged at the Rossview High School football stadium. The tornado crossed I-24 and struck an industrial complex where three buildings were damaged and 75 cars in a parking lot sustained minor damage. The tornado intensified as it crossed Rollow Lane, blowing the roof off one home and downing numerous trees. Four duplexes lost their roofs on Holland Drive and many others were severely damaged. Dozens of homes sustained roof and exterior damage in the Farmington subdivision along Covey Rise Circle, Bainbridge Drive, Green Grove Way, and Edgewater Lane, and one home on Green Grove Way at Covey Rise Circle was shifted off its foundation and completely destroyed, causing two injuries. Another home was heavily damaged west of Gardenia Lane in an area of new homes before the tornado moved across open fields. The last damage was some uprooted trees on Kirkwood Road. Maximum winds were estimated to be 125 mph. Montgomery County Emergency Management estimated the damage from this tornado at 7 million dollars.

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

34 minutes of warning. NWS OHX issued a tornado warning for this county at 02:29 UTC, 34 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 03:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 02:29 UTC and running to 03:58 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 00:42 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.

Clarksville/Outlaw (CKV), 17 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Ft Campbell radar (KHPX), 20 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 03:05 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 2018 tornado in TennesseeEvery tornado in Tennessee since 1950Warnings in force in Tennessee nowThe forecast where you are

29 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.