EF0 tornado, Pleasant Hill to Pomona Rd, Tennessee, April 8, 2021

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

April 8, 2021

Touchdown

3:15 PM CDT (20:15 UTC)

Lifted

3:25 PM CDT (20:25 UTC)

On the ground

10 minutes

Path length

5.8 miles (9.3 km)

Path width

125 yards (114 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$25,000

County

Cumberland County

Touchdown point

35.970, -85.200

Lift-off point

36.030, -85.130

Record number

2104081415-01

32 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.

• Debris from carport blown northward

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

Scattered showers and thunderstorms developed across eastern parts of Middle Tennessee during the late morning and afternoon hours on April 8, 2021. With weak instability of up to 500 J/Kg of MLCAPE along with moderate low level shear around 200-250 m2/s2, several of these storms exhibited weak rotation at times. However, no reports were received until late afternoon when one small storm entered western Cumberland County. This small supercell thunderstorm dropped quarter-size hail on the Pleasant Hill community around 311 PM CDT. Shortly thereafter, numerous photos and videos showed a small EF-0 tornado touching down in the Pleasant Hill community, damaging several buildings. Many area residents witnessed the tornado as it tracked northeastward before lifting near Interstate 40, and the tornado was visible from over 10 miles away and could be seen from downtown Crossville. This storm and others went on to produce more tornadoes to the northeast in Morgan and Scott Counties.

This EF-0 tornado quickly spun up near Highway 70 and Brownstown Road causing minor tree damage. The tornado then moved directly through the Pleasant Hill community where several structures were damaged, including the elementary school and a nursing home, along with a few other buildings. Most of these structures either lost parts of their roofs, had broken glass in windows or doors, or suffered siding damage. The tornado was at its strongest and widest in this area. Continuing northeast, the tornado then travelled along Bud Tanner Road causing mostly downed trees, although a couple of homes had minor roof damage. Minor tree damage continued to be observed on Claysville Road and Stonecrest Loop before the tornado weakened considerably and finally dissipated prior to reaching Interstate 40.

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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

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 Marginal Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 16:24 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), 128 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:14 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 2021 tornado in TennesseeEvery tornado in Tennessee since 1950Warnings in force in Tennessee nowThe forecast where you are

10 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.