EF1 Tornado — Polk, Tennessee

2012-03-02 · near Patty, Polk, Tennessee

Event narrative

Harrison Tornado - Segment #3. The Harrison Tornado struggled as it crossed the Hiwassee River from Bradley County as an EF0. It remained an EF0 for about the next 6 miles as it only downed a few sporatic trees and larger limbs. The tornado started to intensify again near Dentville Rd. and reached it's maximum strength of EF1 at 100 mph as it damaged a couple of single family houses on Columbus Rd., just north of Lindale Rd.

Along its path, 10 homes were damaged with a total estimate of $600K, 5 barns were destroyed with the total agricultural property losses totaling $800K. Total infrastructure damages were $50K. Grand total damages were nearly $1.5 Million. There were no injuries.

Note: This tornado took the following turns: entering the county moving almost due east along the Hiwassee River, then turning to the left near 35.2289/-84.6988, then turning to the right as it intensified near 35.2596/-84.6246. It continued on this track to the McMinn County line.

Wider weather episode

A deepening low pressure system moved northeast from the Mid Mississippi Valley through the Great Lakes initially driving a warm front northward through the Southern Appalachian region during the afternoon. The associated cold front swept across the area late Friday night. A one hundred knot upper level jet positioned over a 50 knot low level jet resulted in a strongly sheared environment. The intense shear and moderate instability produced an atmosphere conducive to long-lived, discrete, supercell thunderstorms. A total of 9 tornadoes ranging in intensity from EF-0 to EF-3 produced widespread damage and nearly 50 injuries to East Tennessee residents in the path of the storms.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (35.2306, -84.7154)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 374103. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.