EF2 Tornado — Lawrence, Tennessee

2015-12-23 · near New Haven, Lawrence, Tennessee

Event narrative

This strong, long-track EF3 tornado touched down just east of the Hardin County/Wayne County line about 2.5 miles southwest of the town of Lutts. At touchdown, hundreds of trees were snapped and uprooted before the tornado reached its peak strength about one half mile west-southwest of Lutts along Lutts Road where the tornado reached a width of 800 yards and EF3 strength. A post office and church, both brick buildings, were destroyed along with multiple homes swept from their foundations. Four people were injured here in Lutts. As the tornado continued northeast, hundreds of trees were snapped and uprooted along its path to where a concentrated area of trees were destroyed about 5 miles north of Collinwood. The tornado continued snapping and uprooting trees until the Highway 64 and Natchez Trace Parkway intersection. At this location, an outbuilding was destroyed along with the roof of a mobile home. Further northeast into Lawrence County along Napier Road, a house was swept off its foundation where 3 people were injured. As the tornado traveled northeast, several homes with roofs completely removed or damaged heavily were found along Linville Road. The tornado weakened as it crossed Lewis County into Maury County where a barn was destroyed and many trees were snapped and uprooted along Joy Road, 2 miles southwest of Mount Pleasant. The total path length of the tornado across Wayne, Lawrence, Lewis and Maury Counties was 48.51 miles.

This is the first tornado on record to occur in Wayne County, Lewis County, and Maury County in the month of December. Lawrence County previously had one tornado in the month of December, which occurred on December 7, 1951. In addition, this was the strongest tornado to occur in the NWS Nashville county warning area since April 10, 2009.

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 → (35.3183, -87.5770)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 607148. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.