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EF0 tornado in Madison County, Tennessee

Tornado May 20, 2025 · Madison County, Tennessee

EF0

Rating

1.3 mi

Path length

75 yd

Path width

$15K

Damage as recorded

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 75 yards (0.04 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF0 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF0 is light damage: shingles and siding peeled, gutters torn, branches broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 65–85 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

A brief tornado touched down in a wooded area just south of James Lawrence Road, to the west of Smith Lane in far southwest Jackson. As the tornado moved northeast, damage to a warehouse building occurred on Smith Lane. Multiple videos showed some roof debris being lofted into the air from the warehouse. The tornado lifted as it moved onto McKellar-Sipes Regional Airport, with some of the debris from the warehouse deposited onto the airfield. Peak winds were estimated at 75 mph.

The wider storm

Numerous showers and thunderstorms covered Arkansas during the early morning hours on May 20, 2025. As these storms moved toward the Mid-South, the cap weakened, and one segment near the Tennessee/Mississippi border intensified and produced wind damage. These storms exited the region by mid-morning.

A brief lull in thunderstorm activity occurred from late morning until early afternoon. Gusty southwest winds aided in rapid atmospheric recovery with SBCAPE values greater than 2000 J/kg by mid-afternoon. In addition, dewpoints remained in the low 70s with bulk shear around 50 kts. Initially, storms were supercellular in nature and eventually formed into a line during the evening hours. Damaging winds and hail were common during this event, and a weak tornado occurred near Jackson, TN.

Began near Mc Kellar Fld (35.5905, -88.9410).

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 1261795. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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