EF1 tornado in Cheatham County, Tennessee

An EF1 tornado touched down in Ashland City near Highway 12 and Batson Street, them moved eastward before lifting east of Floyd Temple Road. A few homes suffered EF0 damage on Batson Street and Oak Street, and one girl was injured on Oak Street when a window of her house blew in on her. An apartment complex suffered minor roof and interior water damage on Oak Circle. More homes suffered minor damage from Valley View Street to Bell Street. EF1 damage occurred between Bell Street and Floyd Temple Road where hundreds of trees were snapped and uprooted before the tornado lifted east of Floyd Temple Road. This tornado along with straight line winds to its south damaged a total of 46 buildings in Ashland Cty according to Cheatham County Emergency Management, including 37 houses, two churches and three apartment buildings, and left two homes uninhabitable. This entry was significantly updated in January 2015 based on aerial and street imagery from Google Earth.

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.