EF0 tornado, Alexandria to Buckners, Tennessee, May 4, 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

May 4, 2021

Touchdown

7:43 AM CDT (12:43 UTC)

Lifted

7:49 AM CDT (12:49 UTC)

On the ground

6 minutes

Path length

4.8 miles (7.7 km)

Path width

200 yards (183 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$25,000

County

DeKalb County

Touchdown point

36.002, -85.803

Lift-off point

35.974, -85.726

Record number

2105040643-01

70 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 81 mph.

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

A QLCS (Quasi-linear Convective System) moved across Middle Tennessee during the early morning hours of May 4, 2021. This line of thunderstorms spawned a total of 14 EF-0 tornadoes throughout Middle Tennessee, at least 4 of which were captured on video by local residents. In addition to the tornadoes, significant straight-line wind damage also affected many other areas of Middle Tennessee, and was just as damaging as the tornadoes in many cases. Thankfully, no injuries or deaths were reported.||Special thanks goes to Middle Tennessee emergency management, tSpotter coordinators, and the public for their assistance and helpful information with these difficult and lengthy storm surveys.

This small, brief tornado touched down on the south side of Alexandria. Security cameras at a home on Old Liberty Road captured the tornado on video as the roof and back porch were blown off the house. The tornado is estimated to have lifted east of Nashville Highway.

This high-end EF-0 tornado touched down along Coconut Ridge Road north of Smithville, blowing down several trees. Moving southeast, the tornado continued to blow down dozens of trees as it crossed Big Hurricane Road and Highway 56. The tornado then moved along and just south of Holiday Haven Road, damaging several homes and barns and continuing to blow down trees. The tornado knocked down more trees as it passed across Eagle Creek and Johnson Ridge Road before lifting on Center Hill Lake. The path of this tornado was visible on Sentinel satellite imagery.

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

16 minutes of warning. NWS OHX issued a tornado warning for this county at 12:27 UTC, 16 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 13:00 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 10:15 UTC and running to 14:16 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 05:30 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.

Sparta (SRB), 22 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Nashville radar (KOHX), 77 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 12:41 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

38 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.