EF0 tornado, Rockhouse to De Rossett, Tennessee, March 29, 2020

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 29, 2020

Touchdown

2:29 AM CDT (07:29 UTC)

Lifted

2:33 AM CDT (07:33 UTC)

On the ground

4 minutes

Path length

6.9 miles (11.1 km)

Path width

75 yards (69 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$100,000

County

White County

Touchdown point

35.915, -85.434

Lift-off point

35.945, -85.317

Record number

2003290129-01

80 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 90 mph.

• Hundreds of trees uprooted

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

Severe thunderstorms rumbled across Middle Tennessee from the afternoon hours of March 28 into the early morning hours of March 29, 2020. One supercell in the afternoon hours of March 28 produced large hail in Stewart County, then a broken line of severe storms with individual intense bow echoes raced across the rest of Middle Tennessee at speeds up to 80 mph from the late evening of March 28 into the early morning of March 29, causing widespread wind damage, large hail, and one EF-0 tornado in White County. The worst damage occurred across White and Cumberland Counties, where winds estimated up to 95 mph caused millions of dollars in damage and injured 1 person.

Embedded within the large macroburst that struck White County, an EF-0 tornado touched down near the Sparta Golf and Country Club on Baker Montain Road and moved northeast onto Bon Air Mountain, ending near Highway 70 at Eastland Road. Damage along the nearly 7 mile track showed a convergent pattern, with numerous large trees snapped and uprooted on Baker Mountain Road and Highway 70. Several farm barns and outbuildings were destroyed on Corolla Road, and a few homes had roof damage. Trees continued to be blown down along Highway 70 before the tornado lifted just before reaching the DeRossett community. Maximum winds in the tornado were estimated to be 85 mph.

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

0 minutes of warning. NWS OHX issued a tornado warning for this county at 07:29 UTC, 0 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 07:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 06:44 UTC and running to 09:00 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 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), 20 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Nashville radar (KOHX), 112 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 07:26 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 2020 tornado in TennesseeEvery tornado in Tennessee since 1950Warnings in force in Tennessee nowThe forecast where you are

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.