EF0 tornado, New Haven to Deerfield, Tennessee, December 16, 2019

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

December 16, 2019

Touchdown

4:55 PM CST (22:55 UTC)

Lifted

4:59 PM CST (22:59 UTC)

On the ground

4 minutes

Path length

3.8 miles (6.0 km)

Path width

25 yards (23 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$15,000

County

Lawrence County

Touchdown point

35.269, -87.519

Lift-off point

35.288, -87.457

Record number

1912161655-01

23 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.

• Front porch removed from house and blown northward. About 25% roof loss.
• House was lifted and sat back down pulling toilet upward by a foot.
• Approximately one dozen pines uprooted
• About one dozen uprooted pines

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

A powerful late fall storm system moved across the eastern U.S. on December 16, 2019, bringing widespread severe thunderstorms and numerous tornadoes to the Gulf Coast states and Tennessee Valley. Across Middle Tennessee, a line of showers and thunderstorms moved across the area during the afternoon hours, bringing wind damage and two EF-0 tornadoes to counties near the Alabama border. Widespread heavy rainfall also caused flash flooding in many areas.

This EF-0 tornado touched down near the intersection of Buck Branch Rd and Piney Road where the front porch and part of the roof was ripped off one house. The toilet in the house was uplifted approximately one foot above the flooring with the plumbing still attached. No evidence of the house shifting on the foundation was found. As the tornado traveled northeastward, the tornado caused sporadic tree damage along Hood Road and collapsed a large farm outbuilding on Granddaddy Road. One house on Grandaddy Road also had a large number of shingles removed along with approximately ten pines uprooted. The tornado continued to damage and blow down trees until it crossed Kelso Road where an outbuilding sustained roof damage. The tornado dissipated before it reached Shotwell Road.

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 tornado watch, issued at 21:47 UTC and running to 23:58 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:25 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.

The Northeast Alabama radar (KHTX), 133 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:55 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 2019 tornado in TennesseeEvery tornado in Tennessee since 1950Warnings in force in Tennessee nowThe forecast where you are

37 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.