EF2 Tornado — Perry, Tennessee

2015-12-23 · near Sugar Hill, Perry, Tennessee

Event narrative

An EF2 tornado touched down in southern Perry County with estimated maximum sustained winds around 115 mph. Starting along the Buffalo River near the Sugar Hill community four miles south of Linden, the tornado traveled to the east-northeast for 15 miles. Along the path, on Hurricane Creek Road, damage to a brick home was concurrent with winds around 115 mph. Multiple other sheds and barns were destroyed in this same area along with scores of snapped and uprooted hardwood trees. The tornado continued east-northeast and crossed U.S. Highway 412 where a home was totally destroyed. Inside the home, 2 people were fatally injured. Multiple other outbuildings were destroyed along with numerous uprooted hardwood trees. Trees were uprooted along Cane Creek Road. Based on Landsat 8 satellite imagery from NASA Sport, the tornado continued blowing down hundreds of trees for several miles across rural northeast Perry County into southwest Hickman County. The tornado then destroyed a storage shed, damaged several homes, and uprooted and snapped hundreds of trees near the Hornertown community before lifting.

This is the first tornado on record to occur in both Perry County and Hickman County in the month of December.

Wider weather episode

An unusually powerful upper level trough moved across the eastern United States on December 23, 2015, spawning widespread severe weather from the Gulf Coast to the Great Lakes. Several tornadic supercell thunderstorms developed across northern Mississippi and western Tennessee, which then moved rapidly east-northeastward at up to 70 mph across Middle Tennessee during the evening hours on December 23. These storms produced 4 long-track tornadoes that caused 2 deaths and 7 reported injuries. Only 7 tornadoes had been previously recorded across Middle Tennessee in the month of December from the 1800s through 2014, easily making this the largest and worst December tornado outbreak in Middle Tennessee history.

In addition to the tornadoes, several reports of wind damage, large hail, and flash flooding were received. Some of the worst flash flooding occurred in Maury County, where 3 teenagers drowned in a submerged vehicle on Carters Creek Pike.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (35.5499, -87.8145)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 607144. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.