EF0 tornado, Palmetto to Noah, Tennessee, May 20, 2025

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 20, 2025

Touchdown

5:47 PM CDT (22:47 UTC)

Lifted

5:51 PM CDT (22:51 UTC)

On the ground

4 minutes

Path length

1.1 miles (1.8 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$250,000

Counties

Coffee and Bedford counties

Touchdown point

35.523, -86.247

Lift-off point

35.539, -86.241

Record number

2505201647-01

8 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 80 mph.

• estimated start point per drone video
• Damage beyond this point weaker and sporadic
• narrow corridor of snapped trees/tree limbs in drone video

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

Multiple rounds of thunderstorms impacted Middle Tennessee on May 20, 2025. The first round of thunderstorms was a decaying mesoscale convective system (MCS) that produced damaging winds which downed a few trees. The next round was discrete supercells which produced large hail, damaging winds, and tornadoes. The largest hail reported during this event was in Williamson County where hailstones of two to three inches fell. Five tornadoes were confirmed during this event with the strongest being an EF-1 tornado in Cumberland County. The final round of thunderstorms was a quasi-linear convective system (QLCS) which produced additional damaging winds before all activity finally ended late in the evening.

An EF-0 tornado touched down near Bedford Lake Road near Shiloh, damaging trees. The tornado moved north-northeast, causing additional timber damage and damaging some farm structures along Bedford Lake Road and Hobbs Lane. The tornado then crossed into Coffee County at Sixteenth Model Road. Damages are a rough estimate.

This continues the EF-0 tornado that began in far eastern Bedford County. After crossing into Coffee County, the tornado continued along Sixteenth Model Road and dissipated shortly thereafter in a wooded area near Cunningham Lane. Damages are a rough estimate.

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

24 minutes of warning. NWS OHX issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:23 UTC, 24 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 19:37 UTC and running to 01:41 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 19:52 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 Northeast Alabama radar (KHTX), 68 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:45 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 2025 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.