EF2 tornado, Saulsbury to Hebron, Tennessee, March 31, 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

March 31, 2023

Touchdown

8:55 PM CDT (01:55 UTC)

Lifted

9:09 PM CDT (02:09 UTC)

On the ground

14 minutes

Path length

12.8 miles (20.6 km)

Path width

450 yards (411 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$250,000

County

Hardeman County

Touchdown point

35.077, -89.109

Lift-off point

35.160, -88.910

Record number

2303311955-01

79 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS MEG, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 125 mph.

• Guardrail peel off and several utility poles down
• Widespread significant tree damage
• Trees uprooted both sides of road

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

A regional tornado outbreak occurred during the late afternoon of Friday, March 31, 2023, and continued into the early morning hours of Saturday, April 1, 2023. This outbreak covered portions of the Ohio Valley, and the Middle and Lower Mississippi Valleys, including a good portion of the Mid-South and stretching into the Tennessee Valley. On Friday, March 31, a surface low was located near La Crosse, WI, with a cold front stretching south into central/southwest Missouri, western Arkansas, and into eastern Texas. Surface temperatures were mainly in the 70s to approaching 80 degrees with surface dewpoints in the lower to middle 60s, yielding Surface-Based CAPE (SBCAPE) values between 1500-2000 J/kg by Friday evening. Favorable upper-level divergence produced by the right entrance region of a 140-kt jet streak at 300 mb provided ample lift to produce strong to severe thunderstorms across the region. Directional and speed shear were impressive with 70-80 knots of Effective Bulk Shear present and 0-1 km Storm Relative Helicity values between 500-600 m2/s2, all more than enough for organized thunderstorms across the area. Discrete supercells started to develop across the Lower Mississippi Valley during the afternoon hours on March 31, 2023, eventually tracking into the Mid-South by late afternoon. The first supercell that developed in the Mid-South produced an EF-3 that caused major damage in Wynne, Arkansas. Tornadic supercells continued to produce significant tornado damage across the Mid-South into the early morning hours of April 1, 2023. The hardest hit areas besides Wynne, Arkansas included Covington, Tennessee, and McNairy County, Tennessee. Overall, 14 tornadoes occurred across the Mid-South along with several reports of wind damage and measured damaging wind speeds. Eighteen people in the Mid-South lost their lives in this outbreak.

A tornado touched down near Grand Junction in southwest Hardeman County, TN on Westfork Road around 855 PM CDT Friday evening, March 31, 2023. This tornado produced an EF-1 swath of tree damage as it traveled to the northeast, uprooting and snapping the trunks of several large trees along Van Buren Road. The damage swath broadened out quite a bit as it reached Evergreen Road, causing more widespread and significant tree damage to Saulsbury Road and Roger Springs Road where EF-2 tree damage was noted. This tree damage continued for another few miles to the northeast where significant roof damage occurred to a one-family residence on Callahan Road. EF-1 damage was observed for several miles to the northeast along Sain Road. The tornado tracked through Lone Oak Farm along Lake Hardeman Road causing additional widespread tree damage. The tornado crossed Highway 125 damaging more trees before lifting just beyond L Crisp Road in a wooded area. Peak winds were estimated at 115 mph.

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

17 minutes of warning. NWS MEG issued a tornado warning for this county at 01:38 UTC, 17 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 02:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 22:58 UTC and running to 04:59 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 High Risk, with a 0.30 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 01:04 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 Memphis radar (KNQA), 82 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:55 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

126 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 127 of them

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.