EF0 tornado, Tidwell to White Bluff, Tennessee, December 11, 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

December 11, 2021

Touchdown

2:49 AM CST (08:49 UTC)

Lifted

2:54 AM CST (08:54 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

5.4 miles (8.7 km)

Path width

175 yards (160 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$10,000

County

Dickson County

Touchdown point

36.026, -87.305

Lift-off point

36.074, -87.233

Record number

2112110249-01

61 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS OHX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 130 mph.

• House wasn’t attached by anything but nails. Southeast inflow winds likely went in the basement garage, and helped this house slide off the top.
• Hundreds of trees snapped or uprooted facing west southwest
• Dozens of trees snapped and uprooted with roof damage to homes
• Several houses with roof and garage damage

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

One of the worst tornado outbreaks ever recorded in the United States struck the Midwest, Ohio Valley, and Tennessee Valley from the evening hours on December 10 into the morning hours on December 11, 2021. Across Middle Tennessee, a total of 16 tornadoes were determined to have touched down, making this the 5th largest tornado outbreak on record in Middle Tennessee. These tornadoes injured 8 people across Middle Tennessee and caused millions of dollars in property and tree damage in many counties. These tornadoes, combined with the 5 tornadoes that occurred just a few days earlier across Middle Tennessee on December 6, 2021, set a new record for the number of tornadoes during the month of December. In addition, many counties that had tornadoes in December 2021 had never recorded a tornado in the month of December before, including Stewart, Humphreys, Cheatham, Wilson, Trousdale, Overton, Pickett, Coffee, and Grundy Counties.

This tornado developed just southeast of the Dickson tornado to the north of I-40 near mile marker 175. Damage was seen on Garton Road where there were large branches broken off trees. The tornado continued northeast where more uprooted trees were seen along Highway 96 and Beech Grove Way. More trees continued to be blown down further to the northeast along JC Brown Road, Johnny Hall Road, and Bakers Work Road before the tornado lifted along Bakers Lewis Road. Based on newly available high resolution satellite imagery, this tornado's rating was changed to EF-0 in March 2023.

This EF-2 tornado touched down near Highway 70 between White Bluff and Kingston Springs, blowing down a few trees and causing roof damage to a few homes in Dickson County. Moving into Cheatham County while staying north of Highway 70, there was severe roof damage to homes on Sneed Road and dozens of trees were snapped. Many more homes and a few businesses and churches suffered roof damage and dozens of trees were blown down further to the east along Highway 70, Butterworth Road, and Old Butterworth Road. Several outbuildings collapsed, more homes and churches were damaged, and power poles blown down further eastward along Highway 70 and Cedar Hill Road. The tornado continued northeastward across rural areas of southeastern Cheatham County, blowing down more trees and damaging roofs and outbuildings along Sams Creek Road, Indian Springs Road and Pond Creek Road before the tornado lifted just east of the Davidson County line. The track of this tornado was adjusted using high resolution NASA satellite imagery. Total path length of this tornado was 12.61 miles.

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

26 minutes of warning. NWS OHX issued a tornado warning for this county at 08:23 UTC, 26 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 09:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 04:45 UTC and running to 10:19 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 Marginal Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 05:48 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.

Dickson (M02), 17 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Nashville radar (KOHX), 67 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 08:46 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 2021 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.