EF2 Tornado — Cumberland, Tennessee

2012-02-29 · near Plateau, Cumberland, Tennessee

Event narrative

An EF2 tornado with maximum wind speeds around 125 mph touched down along Castro-Pugh Road just north of Plateau Road in northern Cumberland County. Intermittent damage continued to the east-northeast for approximately 1 mile before the damage became continuous along Clear Creek Road. Hundreds of trees were uprooted and snapped and a home suffered roof damage in this area.

The tornado continued east-northeast and reached EF2 intensity in the Rinnie community along Highway 127. A brick home slid off its foundation and was completely destroyed, killing one woman, and another nearby home lost its entire roof. A double wide mobile home along Hollow Road was also completely destroyed, killing another woman, with debris tossed hundreds of yards. At least a thousand trees were uprooted or snapped around this location. New aerial imagery from Google Earth released in Spring 2013 indicated the tornado continued eastward and widened to 1/2 mile, blowing down thousands of more trees as it moved across inaccessible forested areas of northern Cumberland County. Damage was apparent eastward to past Roy Taylor Road.

Wider weather episode

A strong storm system moving across the Ohio and Tennessee Valleys caused scattered strong to severe thunderstorms to develop across eastern portions of Middle Tennessee during the afternoon hours. Two supercell thunderstorms spawned four tornadoes resulting in a total of 3 fatalities and 7 injuries. Numerous other reports of wind damage and large hail were received.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (36.0887, -85.1102)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 362596. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.