EF2 tornado, Byrds Chapel to Gulf Park, Tennessee, August 7, 2023

1. EF065 to 85 mph

   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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF2

Date

August 7, 2023

Touchdown

2:17 PM EDT (18:17 UTC)

Lifted

2:23 PM EDT (18:23 UTC)

On the ground

6 minutes

Path length

3.7 miles (6.0 km)

Path width

200 yards (183 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$3.7 million

County

Knox County

Touchdown point

35.931, -84.158

Lift-off point

35.940, -84.093

Record number

2308071217-01

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

• Mostly tree damage and no structural damage.
• Lots of trees down in this neighborhood. Some ridge vents partially removed on a few homes. No shingles lost. Just minor and minimal structural damage. Nearly every tree missed falling on a house.
• Most tree damage and uprooted trees. Large limbs snapped. Broken power poles were due to trees falling on them.
• Many homes with roof damage; lifted decking about 20% or so.

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

A highly anomalous pattern for August including an unseasonably intense low pressure system created several hours of severe thunderstorms including the final round of storms that grew upscale into a severe mesoscale convective system.

The tornado started on Yarnell Road, then reached peak intensity and width as it passed the Lovell Crossing apartment complex. Significant roof damage was noted to several of the homes and apartments in Lovell Cove and Crossing, with partial roof loss and uplift of roof decking common to several apartments. In addition to roof damage, a complete collapse of a garage at Lovell Crossing was noted, along with wooden boards driven into the ground and a large gash in the side of apartment complex office from the impact of a large, but unknown object. Numerous trees in the apartment complex suffered damage from the tornado. The tornado then crossed Pellissippi Parkway, and continued along and north of Bob Gray Road. A driver on Pellissippi Parkway recorded a video of the tornado crossing the parkway. Significant tree damage was observed along Bob Gray Road, with a narrow path of snapped hardwood trees as the tornado progressed eastward. The tornado appears to have dissipated at the intersection of Bob Gray Road and Middlebrook Pike.

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 tornado watch, issued at 15:20 UTC and running to 21:33 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 Enhanced Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 16:40 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 Knoxville radar (KMRX), 70 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 18:17 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

19 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.