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EF0 tornado in Henderson County, Tennessee

Tornado May 2, 2010 · Henderson County, Tennessee

EF0
Rating
5.7 mi
Whole path
100 yd
Path width
$110K
Damage as recorded

NOAA records this tornado county by county. Its path ran through Henderson County → Decatur County; the totals above are for the whole tornado.

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 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 tornado touched down along Old Reagan Road, southwest of Scotts Hill and tracked northeast. This storm cell had previously produced tornadoes in McNairy and Hardin Counties. A building and outbuilding sustained roof damage at the beginning of the track. The tornado continued northeast and hit Scotts Hill before crossing into Decatur County. Several trees were knocked down along the path. In total, five homes were damaged from the tornado.

The wider storm

An upper level disturbance slowly approached the Mid-South during the evening of April 30th, 2010 as a cold front became stationary to the west. This pattern remained in place through the evening hours of May 2nd, 2010. South to southwest winds pumped warm moist air from the Gulf of Mexico and created a very unstable atmosphere. Showers and thunderstorms developed in association with the front during the early evening hours and moved east into Eastern Arkansas shortly before midnight. Additional thunderstorms occurred in association with the upper level disturbance. Due to the unstable atmosphere, thunderstorms quickly became severe producing large hail, damaging winds, and flash flooding. The severe weather evolved into an outbreak by May 1st and 2nd. Historic rainfall and flash flooding in addition to large hail and damaging winds occurred during the early morning hours of May 1st with several tornadoes occurring during the afternoon hours of May 1st to early morning hours of May 2nd.

Began near Cedar Grove (35.4984, -88.2825).

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 237799. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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