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EF0 tornado in Davidson County, Tennessee

Tornado January 30, 2013 · Davidson County, Tennessee

EF0
Rating
5.5 mi
Path length
50 yd
Path width
$10K
Damage as recorded
$15K
Crop damage
EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 50 yards (0.03 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

An EF0 tornado began in Joelton along Harper Road between I-24 and Highway 41 where 3 large oak trees were uprooted and fell in a convergent pattern. The damage path continued east northeast with mostly tree damage. Along Bidwell Road, damage to a roof and barn was observed along with 10 to 15 downed trees. The path of damage crossed Wilkinson Road, Ridgewood Road, and Ivy Point Road where numerous trees were snapped and uprooted before the tornado lifted.

The wider storm

A powerful upper level trough moved across the United States from Tuesday, January 29th into Wednesday, January 30th. This system contained unusually strong winds aloft, with wind speeds of 80 mph just 2500 feet above the surface and up to 150 mph at 20,000 feet. A record warm airmass with temperatures in the 60s and 70s spread northward ahead of the system into the Tennessee and Ohio Valleys, bringing weak atmospheric instability into the region. As a powerful cold front moved eastward across Middle Tennessee during the early morning hours of January 30, the strong low level jet ahead of the front caused strong gradient winds of 40 to 65 mph at the surface, resulting in several reports of wind damage. A peak sustained south wind of 45 mph with a peak gust of 64 mph was measured by the ASOS at the Nashville International Airport around 315 AM CST in association with these intense gradient winds. A line of showers and thunderstorms known as a Quasi-Linear Convective System (QLCS) developed along the front near the Tennessee River and raced eastward through the area between 2 AM and 6 AM, producing at least 23 tornadoes and widespread wind damage. This severe weather event resulted in 1 fatality and at least 3 injuries across the Mid State. The total of 23 tornadoes made the January 30, 2013 event the largest January tornado outbreak in Middle Tennessee history. It also made January 30, 2013 the second biggest outbreak of tornadoes for any month in Middle Tennessee history.

Began near Joelton (36.3273, -86.9150).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

19 more tornadoes the National Weather Service filed under this storm episode.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 428695. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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