Thunderstorm Wind — Houston, Tennessee

2020-05-03 · near Erin, Houston, Tennessee

Event narrative

Numerous trees and power outages were reported across Houston County.

Wider weather episode

A complex of severe thunderstorms called a MCS (Mesoscale Convective System) developed across southern Kansas on Saturday night, May 2, 2020, then tracked eastward across southern Missouri and western Kentucky during the morning of May 3, 2020 before reaching Middle Tennessee in the afternoon. These storms produced widespread straight-line wind damage across every county of Middle Tennessee, with numerous trees, power lines, and buildings damaged. Some of the worst damage occurred across the Nashville metro area, where winds between 60-80 mph knocked out power to over 130,000 customers - the worst power outage on record for the city. Some customers were without power for up to one week. A peak wind gust of 71 mph was measured at the Nashville International Airport, which is the 5th highest on record at that location. Other counties across Middle Tennessee also saw severe wind damage and tens of thousands of customers lose power. Sadly, 1 man was killed and 5 other people injured by falling trees due to the storms. This event was determined to be a derecho due to the widespread and long-track of the straight-line wind damage, and was likely the worst straight-line wind event across Middle Tennessee since the July 13, 2004 derecho. Total damage across Middle Tennessee, including Lincoln, Moore, and Franklin Counties, was estimated by the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency at $16,671,521. Damage totals for each county are consolidated into one main entry and are not separated out by individual damage event.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (36.3200, -87.7000)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 897251. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.