EF1 tornado in Grundy County, Tennessee

Although a NWS storm survey originally determined the damage path across Franklin, Coffee, and Grundy Counties to be one long-track tornado, high-resolution satellite imagery from NASA Sport and Google Earth in May 2019 clearly showed that the original track was actually made up of two separate tornadoes. This large, strong EF-1 tornado touched down in a forested area with no road access about 1 mile northeast of the Highway 108 and Highway 50 intersection, which was also around 1 mile north of the previous tornado as it was weakening and occluding. Satellite imagery showed thousands of trees were blown down in large convergent swaths along a trochoidal loop-type track as the tornado passed 2 miles south of Altamont. The tornado continued snapping and uprooting hundreds of trees it crossed Highway 56, Colony Road, and 20th Avenue North, with some trees falling onto and damaging homes, and others blocking area roadways. A carport was also blown over on Reeves Road. Once again tracking through uninhabited forests, the tornado continued to blow down hundreds more trees for several miles, eventually crossing Stage Coach Road and Lovell Road. The tornado dissipated into a large downburst as it crossed Highway 399 into Sequatchie County. Winds were estimated up to 110 mph.

A line of severe thunderstorms called a Quasi-linear Convective System (QLCS) developed across west Tennessee and moved eastward across Middle Tennessee during the late evening hours on Monday, November 5, 2018 into the early morning hours on Tuesday, November 6, 2018. This system spawned at least 10 tornadoes across Middle Tennessee that occurred in the darkness of night, including an EF-2 tornado that struck the Christiana area of Rutherford County, which unfortunately killed one woman and injured three others. Other tornadoes in this outbreak affected central Kentucky, northern and central Alabama, Mississippi and northern Louisiana. This tornado outbreak was the worst to affect Middle Tennessee since the December 23, 2015 tornado outbreak, which also occurred at night during the secondary severe weather season that occurs in the fall and early winter.