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EF1 tornado in Shelby County, Tennessee

Tornado July 30, 2009 · Shelby County, Tennessee

EF1
Rating
2.0 mi
Path length
250 yd
Path width
1
Death
$250K
Damage as recorded
EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 250 yards (0.14 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 intersection of Interstate 40 and Appling Road. The tornado damaged a couple of baseball fields and proceeded northeast. A Kohl's department store and a Toyota dealership sustained damage. Several vehicles had windows blown out. A tractor-trailer was also overturned in the Kohl's parking lot. The tornado then crossed Germantown Parkway and damaged a Shogun Japanese Restaurant, a gas station and several other businesses. The tornado then proceeded northeast into a residential neighborhood where 97 homes sustained minor damage. Four apartment complexes and a total of 25 businesses received at least minor damage. Trees were also uprooted and snapped in the area. The tornado then moved into a golf course where at least 50 trees, fences and one small building was damaged. The tornado lifted near the center of the golf course. An off-duty firefighter was killed a few days later cleaning up storm debris when a tree fell on him.

The wider storm

A cold front approached the Mid-South during the afternoon hours of July 30th, 2009. A low pressure center developed along the front as the front moved into the area. The low pressure helped to spawn several tornadoes across the Mid-South. In addition, other storms produced damaging winds, large hail and flash flooding into the evening hours.

Began near Shelby Center (35.1864, -89.8086).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 190659. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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