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EF1 tornado in Roane County, Tennessee

Tornado May 20, 2025 · Roane County, Tennessee

EF1

Rating

0.5 mi

Path length

100 yd

Path width

$50K

Damage as recorded

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 100 yards (0.06 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF1 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF1 is moderate damage: roofs badly stripped, mobile homes pushed off foundations or overturned, windows broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 86–110 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 100 yard wide EF-1 tornado with peak winds near 100 mph started near Blair Road and Butler Drive where several trees were uprooted and trunks snapped. The tornado tracked near Old Harriman Highway where numerous tree trunks were snapped along the path. The tornado lifted near Whaley Road and Old Harriman Highway. Tornado was on the ground for roughly a 0.5 mile.

The wider storm

An occluding surface low bringing a trailing cold front forced several bouts of severe thunderstorms in East Tennessee, fueled by high effective shear and moderate amounts of instability.

Began near Jonesville (35.9762, -84.4094).

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 1265418. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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