EF2 Tornado — Bradley, Tennessee

2020-04-12 · near Cleveland, Bradley, Tennessee

Event narrative

The storm from Hamilton County moved into Bradley County with a mesocyclone moving directly over downtown Cleveland. A tornado then formed quickly in Cleveland, less than a mile east northeast of downtown. A residential section was hit, comprising single family homes as well as mobile homes, with 26 destroyed, 23 receiving major damage, and 62 other dwellings affected. A church in this area was heavily damaged and hundreds of trees were either uprooted, or had large limbs snapped. The tornado then moved out of the city before occluding and dissipating in rural areas near Benton Pike east of downtown.

Wider weather episode

A prolonged convective event with deep moist southerly flow in an unstable environment with strong wind shear generated supercell thunderstorms across Southeast Tennessee and Southwest North Carolina. The lengthy period of heavy rain resulted in widespread three to four inch rainfall totals across East Tennessee, Southwest North Carolina, and Southwest Virginia.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (35.1613, -84.8640)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 877262. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.