EF0 tornado, Sparta White Co Arpt to Ballard, Tennessee, November 6, 2018

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 6, 2018

Touchdown

1:29 AM CST (07:29 UTC)

Lifted

1:34 AM CST (07:34 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

4.0 miles (6.5 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$15,000

County

White County

Touchdown point

36.051, -85.556

Lift-off point

36.068, -85.488

Record number

1811060129-01

11 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.

• Tree on Barn on Post Oak Bridge Road. Potential end of tornado track.
• Several small trees snapped
• Barn roof damage on Robert Matthews HWY
• Several trees snapped on Joshtown Road

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

A line of severe thunderstorms called a Quasi-linear Convective System (QLCS) developed across west Tennessee and moved eastward across Middle Tennessee during the late evening hours on Monday, November 5, 2018 into the early morning hours on Tuesday, November 6, 2018. This system spawned at least 10 tornadoes across Middle Tennessee that occurred in the darkness of night, including an EF-2 tornado that struck the Christiana area of Rutherford County, which unfortunately killed one woman and injured three others. Other tornadoes in this outbreak affected central Kentucky, northern and central Alabama, Mississippi and northern Louisiana. This tornado outbreak was the worst to affect Middle Tennessee since the December 23, 2015 tornado outbreak, which also occurred at night during the secondary severe weather season that occurs in the fall and early winter.

This EF-0 tornado touched down on Josh Brown Road and Betty Lane where it snapped trees and broke several large branches. As it moved east it destroyed a barn on South Bunker Hill Road and overturned containers and a trailer at the Upper Cumberland Regional Airport. The KSRB AWOS located at the southwest end of the airport measured a northwest wind gust of 53 mph as the tornado passed just southeast of the weather station. Across Hwy 111 there was damage to an outbuildings metal roof and large branches broken. The path concluded on Post Oak Bridge Road where a tree fell onto a barn and large branches were snapped off trees.

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 07:28 UTC, 1 minute before the tornado touched down, in force until 07:43 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 04:30 UTC and running to 08:44 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 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.

Sparta (SRB), 1 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Nashville radar (KOHX), 96 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 07:27 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

8 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.