EF3 Tornado — Hardin, Tennessee

2023-03-31 · near Box Elder, Hardin, Tennessee

Event narrative

This tornado weakened as it moved from McNairy into Hardin County, with damage to homes and trees along Highway 69, Old Union Road, Harris Road, and Glendale Road near Hookers Bend. One area of more intense damage was surveyed near Chalk Bluff along Glendale Road where a manufactured home was completely destroyed and an area of trees was slightly debarked. The tornado then approached New Harmony, crossing the bends in the Tennessee River three times. Numerous homes were damaged along Emerald Lane and in the area of Flat Bluff near Becky Road and Lion Lane. Additional damage was noted in the Crossroads area along Clifton and Hardin Creek Roads as the tornado moved into Wayne County. In total, nearly 150 structures were damaged in Hardin County between this tornado and the EF-2 that occurred a couple of hours earlier, 42 of which were total losses. Peak winds in Hardin County from this tornado were estimated at 145 mph.

Wider weather episode

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.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (35.2680, -88.3680)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1089416. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.