EF2 tornado, Springfield to Oakland, Tennessee, December 9, 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

December 9, 2023

Touchdown

4:16 PM CST (22:16 UTC)

Lifted

4:25 PM CST (22:25 UTC)

On the ground

9 minutes

Path length

6.0 miles (9.7 km)

Path width

300 yards (274 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

4

Property damage

$10 million

County

Robertson County

Touchdown point

36.469, -86.908

Lift-off point

36.505, -86.811

Record number

2312091616-01

57 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 120 mph.

• A few trees uprooted. This is the beginning point of the Springfield tornado.
• Warehouse significantly damaged. Anchor was severely rusted.
• Building had Grade 5 bolts connected to the anchoring. Fairly well built building.
• Uplift of roof and collapsed facade. Interior remains intact.

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

A major tornado outbreak impacted Middle Tennessee during the afternoon and evening hours of December 9, 2023. With a surface low pressure system situated over the Great Lakes area, a cold front was oriented north-to-south from the Great Lakes southward into the southeastern United States. Ahead of this cold front, southerly flow advected plenty of moisture into Middle Tennessee as the atmosphere destabilized. Meanwhile, a potent low-level jet resulted in an abundant amount of wind shear. This helped to set the stage for organized thunderstorms with a tornado threat. Thunderstorms began to cross the Tennessee River into the mid-state during the early afternoon hours. The first tornado of the day touched down in Indian Mound in Stewart County. That same supercell spawned another, more significant, tornado in Montgomery County that impacted Clarksville. This was the strongest tornado of the event, causing EF-3 damage before it continued its path into Kentucky. In total, six tornadoes were confirmed from this event, including another long-track EF-2 tornado that impacted Davidson, Sumner, and Trousdale counties which was warned with a Tornado Emergency. Unfortunately, seven people were killed during this event.

This EF-2 tornado touched down north of C.M. Martin Road to the west of Highway 431 where it blew down a few trees. The tornado crossed Highway 431 south of Main Street where it knocked over some power poles, then continued to blow down trees east of the highway. The tornado moved into southern Springfield near Fairway Trail and Kemper Court, snapping and uprooting trees along many residential streets and causing minor damage to a few homes. More significant damage to homes occurred further northeast on Rudolph Street and Brentlawn Drive. The tornado strengthened as it crossed Highway 41 near the Kroger shopping center, with numerous businesses damaged from high-end EF1 to low-end EF2 intensity (110-115 mph). 25 vehicles in the Kroger parking lot were flipped with some thrown into nearby ditches. The tornado then crossed the railroad tracks behind Kroger and reached its peak intensity as it entered an industrial area, where multiple warehouse structures were heavily damaged. With the majority of these metal building systems having Grade 5 bolts holding down the columns, winds were estimated at EF-2/120 mph in this area. The tornado then struck a fire department and strip mall (EF-1/110 mph) and bent a steel transmission pole at a power substation (EF-2/115 mph) on the east side of the industrial park. As the tornado continued northeast, it significantly weakened but still uprooted trees and caused minor roof damage to homes on Greystone Drive and Sloan Lane. On Roy Pitt Road, the tornado destroyed a two car garage and rolled a trailer on its side (EF-1). The tornado continued to blow down trees as it moved northeast across Highway 76E near Oakland Road before finally lifting north of Sloan Road.

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

11 minutes of warning. NWS OHX issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:05 UTC, 11 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 22:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 17:36 UTC and running to 23:38 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 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 20:03 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.

Springfield (M91), 8 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Nashville radar (KOHX), 38 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:17 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

11 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.