EF0 tornado, Lambert, 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

12:40 AM CST (06:40 UTC)

Lifted

12:41 AM CST (06:41 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.5 miles (0.9 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Fayette County

Touchdown point

35.308, -89.463

Lift-off point

35.310, -89.454

Record number

2112110040-01

2 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS MEG, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 75 mph.

• Photographic evidence of tornado starting point.

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

December 10, 2021, was unseasonably warm over the region. Temperatures broke several long-standing records. Memphis hit 80��F which broke a 103-year-old high-temperature record. ||A strong upper-level trough was approaching from the west, providing strong lift within the unseasonably warm and unstable air mass. MLCAPE reached the 1500-2000 J/kg range by 6 PM. The wind field was impressive with plenty of vertical wind shear needed for organized thunderstorms. Effective 0-1 km storm-relative helicity values ranged from 300-400 m2/s2 with effective bulk shear values of 70 knots - more than sufficient to support discrete supercells in the warm sector ahead of the cold front.||The first supercell developed in central Arkansas and tracked into northeast Arkansas producing a few weak tornadoes initially before intensifying across eastern Craighead and Mississippi Counties and killing two people. The tornado eventually strengthened into an EF-4 while moving through the Missouri Bootheel, resulting in 2 direct and one indirect fatality in Pemiscot County. The tornado then tracked across the Mississippi River into northwest Tennessee, producing an additional 4 fatalities near Reelfoot Lake. This tornado lifted for a brief time in Obion County, reorganized, and then moved into Kentucky. All told, the mesocyclone tracked for over 300 miles and was producing tornadoes for over 250 miles. This storm was responsible for at least 9 fatalities and many injuries in the NWS Memphis CWA along with millions of dollars of damage. ||As the initial supercell was crossing the state line into Kentucky, a string of supercells was moving into eastern Arkansas. A few brief tornadoes produced minor damage near Cash in western Craighead County and in the Fisher area of western Poinsett County. As the dominant supercell moved into eastern Poinsett County, the mesocyclone quickly intensified and the storm produced an EF-2 tornado in Trumann with several injuries and widespread damage. ||A new supercell developed in Mississippi County causing straight-line wind damage initially. This supercell intensified as it crossed the Mississippi River and produced another long-track tornado starting in Dyer County, Tennessee. This tornado tracked east-northeast across northwest Tennessee into Henry County, and eventually into Kentucky. This tornado was rated EF-3 and resulted in several injuries with Kenton and Dresden, Tennessee being the hardest hit. ||The convection eventually evolved into a QLCS as it moved east. A mesovortex developed south of I-40 near Jackson that resulted in 3 tornadoes across eastern Madison, Henderson, and Decatur Counties including an EF-2. Non-tornadic storms moved across the Memphis metropolitan area, producing straight-line wind damage as a mesovortex moved through the city. A fatality was reported in Shelby County after a large tree fell on a home in South Memphis. Later that night, an EF-1 tornado occurred in Prentiss County before the severe weather threat began to wind down around 6 AM on December 11, 2021. ||In total, there were 18 tornadoes across the NWS Memphis CWA. Along with tornadoes, several incidents of wind damage and minor flash flooding also occurred.

A weak tornado touched down in rural Fayette County. No damage was observed.

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

4 minutes of warning. NWS MEG issued a tornado warning for this county at 06:36 UTC, 4 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 07:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 04:50 UTC and running to 10:08 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 05:48 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.

Somerville (FYE), 13 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Memphis radar (KNQA), 38 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 06:42 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.