EF4 Cookeville tornado, Tennessee, March 3, 2020

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 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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF4

Date

March 3, 2020

Touchdown

1:48 AM CST (07:48 UTC)

Lifted

1:56 AM CST (07:56 UTC)

On the ground

8 minutes

Path length

8.4 miles (13.5 km)

Path width

900 yards (823 m)

Deaths

19

Injuries

87

Property damage

$100 million

County

Putnam County

Touchdown point

36.172, -85.663

Lift-off point

36.171, -85.513

Record number

2003030148-01

537 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS OHX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF4. The highest wind the damage implies is 175 mph.

• Roof supposedly came from home a block away
• Three bolt screws with concrete at the garage
• House attached to the foundation with these nails
• Very well constructed foundation and home. Back side was greatly destroyed (not shown in pic)

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

From the late evening hours on March 2 into the early morning hours on March 3, supercell thunderstorms developed and spawned tornadoes across southeast Missouri, southern Kentucky, Tennessee, and central Alabama. One of these supercells formed near the Mississippi River in west Tennessee, then tracked eastward across the entire length of the state just north of the Interstate 40 corridor, spawning 10 tornadoes and dropping large hail bigger than the size of baseballs. Seven of these tornadoes touched down across Middle Tennessee, resulting in widespread damage, 307 injuries and 24 fatalities. An additional fatality and 2 more injuries occurred in Benton County in west Tennessee. These tornadoes were the worst seen in Tennessee since the devastating tornadoes of April 27, 2011 across east Tennessee, as well as the Super Tuesday tornadoes of February 5-6, 2008. Total damage estimates from the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency across Middle Tennessee reached $1.6 billion.

An historic, violent EF-4 tornado began in western Putnam County northwest of Baxter and tracked eastward for over 8 miles before lifting near downtown Cookeville, damaging or destroying dozens of homes and businesses, killing 19 people, and injuring 88 others. The tornado began 2.5 miles northwest of Baxter along Highway 70 where it caused EF-0 damage to several homes and outbuildings. Scattered trees were blown down as the tornado continued eastward across Gainesboro Highway. The tornado quickly intensified to EF-2 in the Prosperity Pointe subdivision just north of Highway 70 and further strengthened to EF-3 as it crossed Bloomington Road and Clemmons Road in the Double Springs community, severely damaging several homes. As the tornado moved across Charleston Square, Plunk Whitson Road, and North McBloom Chapel Road, it intensified even more and produced a 0.8 mile long by 100 yards wide swath of EF-4 damage. 17 well-constructed, large homes in this area were completely leveled, mostly on Hensley Drive, with many deaths occurring in this area. EF-4 damage continued eastward to Echo Valley Drive, where an apartment complex and 5 more homes were completely destroyed. The tornado weakened to EF-3 as it crossed Highway 70 and Locust Grove Road, where numerous more homes and buildings were damaged or destroyed. A dashcam video of the tornado was taken from an unoccupied vehicle on Willow Brook Drive in this area. Continuing along Highway 70, the tornado weakened further to EF-2 intensity as it crossed County Farm Road and Jackson Street, then down to EF-1 strength along Crescent Drive and Buck Avenue. The tornado rapdily dissipated as it entered the downtown area of Cookeville, quickly lifting on Laurel Avenue just west of Cookeville Regional Medical Center. This was the worst tornado on record to affect Putnam County.

The deaths

19 direct deaths are recorded for this tornado, each with what Storm Data knows of it.

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 07:48 UTC, 0 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 08:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 07:01 UTC and running to 12:00 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 Storm Prediction Center had this point in a General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 05:56 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 Nashville radar (KOHX), 88 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 07:46 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

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.