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EF2 tornado in Cumberland County, Tennessee

Tornado February 29, 2012 · Cumberland County, Tennessee

EF2
Rating
11.1 mi
Path length
1,000 yd
Path width
2
Deaths
7
Injuries
$1.0M
Damage as recorded
EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 1,000 yards (0.57 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF2 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF2 is considerable damage: roofs torn off well-built houses, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, consistent with estimated gusts of 111–135 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

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.

The wider storm

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.

Began near Plateau (36.0887, -85.1102).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

1 more tornado the National Weather Service filed under this storm episode.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 362596. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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