EF1 tornado, Forest Grove to Ridge Top, Tennessee, April 28, 2026

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 mphthis tornado

   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, as surveyed

EF1, preliminary

Date

April 28, 2026

Touchdown

2:28 AM CDT (07:28 UTC)

Lifted

2:30 AM CDT (07:30 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

1.6 miles (2.5 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Counties

Davidson and Robertson counties

Touchdown point

36.351, -86.838

Lift-off point

36.355, -86.810

Highest wind the damage implies

95 mph

Surveyed by

NWS OHX

The office's name for it

Davidson/Robertson

Survey last edited

April 30, 2026

Record number

None yet. SPC numbers 2026 in the spring of 2027.

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 EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 95 mph.

• Start of path, convergent tree fall evident on drone footage
• Facing ridge off of ivy point rd
• More extensive timber damage
• Dozens of trees uprooted and snapped

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

Two rounds of severe thunderstorms impacted Middle Tennessee late in the evening of April 27, 2026, and into the early morning hours of April 28th. A line of thunderstorms developed ahead of a cold front, but the first round was scattered thunderstorms ahead of this line. The thunderstorms preceding the main line produced large hail and damaging wind gusts while the line of thunderstorms was mainly responsible for scattered wind damage. An EF-1 tornado was confirmed in northern Davidson and southern Robertson counties. The strongest straight-line wind damage was reported in northern Lawrence County where numerous downed trees and other structural damage was found in the Summertown area.

An EF-1 tornado touched down just east of Ridgewood Road and proceeded east after inflow produced straight-line wind damage along Strawberry Hill Road. The tornado moved east, leaving convergent swirl markings in an open farm field and snapping two rows of pine trees. The tornado continued east-northeast into Robertson County. Damages are a rough estimate.

This is a continuation of the EF-1 tornado that began in Davidson County. As the tornado entered Robertson County, it followed the southern edge of the valley along Browns Lake Road where the most extensive damage occurred with hundreds of trees snapped and uprooted. Most structural damage was caused by falling trees or winds north of the circulation. The tornado damaged around five barns and outbuildings west of Browns Lake before lifting near the lake. Damages are a rough estimate.

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

0 minutes of warning. NWS OHX issued a tornado warning for this county at 07:28 UTC, 0 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 07:44 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 04:23 UTC and running to 08:40 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, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 05:59 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), 26 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 07:26 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 2026 tornado in TennesseeEvery tornado in Tennessee since 1950Warnings in force in Tennessee nowThe forecast where you are

15 more have been surveyed in the United States that day, so far.

Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. A survey can be revised, so the rating, the path and the casualties can all still change.

NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit, the record the survey teams file from the damage, and NOAA Storm Prediction Center storm reports. Neither is the official database for 2026, which SPC publishes in the spring of 2027.