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EF2 tornado in Benton County, Tennessee

Tornado February 5, 2008 · Benton County, Tennessee

EF2
Rating
6.6 mi
Whole path
440 yd
Path width
$10.2M
Damage as recorded

NOAA records this tornado county by county. Its path ran through Benton County → Houston County; the totals above are for the whole tornado.

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 440 yards (0.25 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF2 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF2 is considerable damage: roofs torn off well-built houses, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, consistent with estimated gusts of 111–135 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

The tornado came out of northern Benton County and caused damage in Houston County. Trees were uprooted and snapped, and homes were damaged along Highway 147 from the Tennessee River to just west-northwest of McKinnon. There were 20 power poles down on Danville Rd. Worst damage was from Big Sandy to Faxon to Grannys Branch.

Fourteen homes were destroyed, and one other had major damage. About half of these homes were mobile homes.

The wider storm

The Super Severe Weather Outbreak on Feb. 5, 2008 produced supercelluar thunderstorms, well in advance of a multicell line of thunderstorms. The whole episode lasted about 6 hours. This occurred ironically while many states, including Tennessee, were participating in the Super Tuesday Primary Election. Fortunately, polls had already closed in the mid state when these tornadoes struck.

Began near Faxon (36.2542, -88.0073).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 79137. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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