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EF2 tornado in Robertson County, Tennessee

Tornado December 9, 2023 · Robertson County, Tennessee

EF2
Rating
6.0 mi
Path length
300 yd
Path width
4
Injuries
$10.0M
Damage as recorded
EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 300 yards (0.17 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF2 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF2 is considerable damage: roofs torn off well-built houses, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, consistent with estimated gusts of 111–135 mph. The rating comes from a survey of the worst damage after the storm, not from a wind measurement, so it says as much about what the tornado hit as about how strong it was.

What the National Weather Service wrote

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.

The wider storm

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.

Began near Springfield (36.4689, -86.9078).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

6 more tornadoes the National Weather Service filed under this storm episode.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 1144376. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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