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EF1 tornado in Franklin County, Tennessee

Tornado May 25, 2025 · Franklin County, Tennessee

EF1
Rating
6.8 mi
Path length
100 yd
Path width
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 tornado touched down just east of the Bluegill Grill and Marina, producing sporadic tree damage between Holiday Drive and Awalt Road. At this location, the tornado was approximately 100 yards wide, snapping and uprooting several hardwood trees. From here, the tornado continued to the east-southeast, producing sporadic tree damage on Rock Creek Road and again just after crossing Highway 41A. Several hardwood and softwood trees were snapped and uprooted on Taylor Road. Sporadic tree damage continued north and east of Estill Springs, with several areas of large branches downed along the path. The tornado dissipated east of Hwy 41A.

The wider storm

An upper level disturbance moving east into southern middle Tennessee (north of a slow moving frontal boundary edge north from central Alabama) interacted with an unstable atmosphere in the mid-afternoon hours to produce a line of strong to severe thunderstorms that pushed east into eastern Tennessee between 6 and 7 PM. This line of storms produced damaging winds across a good portion of southern middle Tennessee, particularly in northern portions of Lincoln, Moore and NW Franklin counties. In addition, a brief QLCS tornado occurred as well in Franklin county, TN.

This area was worked over by this initial convection enough to keep additional severe weather from occurring with a second line of thunderstorms that developed further south later that evening.

Began near Awalt (35.2744, -86.2358).

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 1276635. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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