EF0 tornado, Ewingville to Mudsink, Tennessee, August 12, 2023

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

August 12, 2023

Touchdown

11:47 AM CDT (16:47 UTC)

Lifted

11:50 AM CDT (16:50 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

1.9 miles (3.0 km)

Path width

40 yards (37 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$100,000

County

Williamson County

Touchdown point

35.934, -86.853

Lift-off point

35.916, -86.829

Record number

2308121047-01

19 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 87 mph.

• Likely end of tornado. Car pushed on sidewalk. Minor roof damage to businesses.

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

A line of thunderstorms moved through Middle Tennessee during the early afternoon hours of August 12, 2023. Damaging straight-line winds were the main hazard with this line with numerous reports received of downed trees and powerlines. One weak tornado also occurred in Franklin, causing minor tree damage. This activity was produced a lot of lightning with notably caused a large apartment fire in Mount Juliet.

A brief, weak EF0 tornado touched down 1.2 miles northeast of downtown Franklin and moved southeast before lifting near Highway 96 at Royal Oaks Boulevard. The main damage was numerous trees being blown down along the intermittent damage path with some falling onto homes. A few homes suffered minor roof and exterior damage near the beginning of the path between Sycamore Drive and Chestnut Lane, and some businesses had minor roof and exterior damage along Highway 96. Maximum winds with this tornado were estimated 75 mph. Damages are a rough estimate.

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.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 15:51 UTC and running to 17:54 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. The outlook in force was issued at 16:23 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), 44 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 16:47 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 2023 tornado in TennesseeEvery tornado in Tennessee since 1950Warnings in force in Tennessee nowThe forecast where you are

15 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.