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EF2 tornado in Overton County, Tennessee

Tornado March 2, 2012 · Overton County, Tennessee

EF2
Rating
8.6 mi
Whole path
400 yd
Path width
$1.2M
Damage as recorded

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

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 400 yards (0.23 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

The tornado that began in southeast Jackson County and crossed into northern Putnam County continued northeastward, producing EF2 damage across southern Overton County. Several homes were damaged as the tornado crossed Highway 136 just south of Hardys Chapel Road. Curving more eastward, the tornado continued down Hardys Chapel Road where several mobile homes were destroyed and other frame homes were heavily damaging. Hundreds of trees were blown down in this area. More homes were damaged on Windle Community Road and Highway 111 before the tornado lifted north of the intersection of River Trace Road and East Howard Road, about 4 miles south-southwest of Livingston. The total path length of the tornado was 12.3 miles.

The wider storm

On Friday, March 2nd, as a warm and moist surface based air mass occurred across Middle Tennessee in advance of a strong surface cold front, and a deep upper level trough moved closer to the mid state with strong winds aloft, a significant severe weather outbreak occurred across the mid state starting in the morning hours and lasting well into the evening hours. Multiple reports of large hail occurred across the area, with sizes ranging from penny to baseball size. Several locations reported thunderstorm wind damage. Two tornadoes, an EF1 and EF2 respectively, occurred across the mid state with some funnel clouds being reported also.

Began near Waterloo (36.3020, -85.4673).

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 369877. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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