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EF1 tornado in Dickson County, Tennessee

Tornado December 11, 2021 · Dickson County, Tennessee

EF1
Rating
21.6 mi
Whole path
100 yd
Path width
1
Injury
$1.8M
Damage as recorded

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

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 100 yards (0.06 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF1 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF1 is moderate damage: roofs badly stripped, mobile homes pushed off foundations or overturned, windows broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 86–110 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

This EF-2 tornado touched down near Highway 70 between White Bluff and Kingston Springs, blowing down a few trees and causing roof damage to a few homes in Dickson County. Moving into Cheatham County while staying north of Highway 70, there was severe roof damage to homes on Sneed Road and dozens of trees were snapped. Many more homes and a few businesses and churches suffered roof damage and dozens of trees were blown down further to the east along Highway 70, Butterworth Road, and Old Butterworth Road. Several outbuildings collapsed, more homes and churches were damaged, and power poles blown down further eastward along Highway 70 and Cedar Hill Road. The tornado continued northeastward across rural areas of southeastern Cheatham County, blowing down more trees and damaging roofs and outbuildings along Sams Creek Road, Indian Springs Road and Pond Creek Road before the tornado lifted just east of the Davidson County line. The track of this tornado was adjusted using high resolution NASA satellite imagery. Total path length of this tornado was 12.61 miles.

The wider storm

One of the worst tornado outbreaks ever recorded in the United States struck the Midwest, Ohio Valley, and Tennessee Valley from the evening hours on December 10 into the morning hours on December 11, 2021. Across Middle Tennessee, a total of 16 tornadoes were determined to have touched down, making this the 5th largest tornado outbreak on record in Middle Tennessee. These tornadoes injured 8 people across Middle Tennessee and caused millions of dollars in property and tree damage in many counties. These tornadoes, combined with the 5 tornadoes that occurred just a few days earlier across Middle Tennessee on December 6, 2021, set a new record for the number of tornadoes during the month of December. In addition, many counties that had tornadoes in December 2021 had never recorded a tornado in the month of December before, including Stewart, Humphreys, Cheatham, Wilson, Trousdale, Overton, Pickett, Coffee, and Grundy Counties.

Began near White Bluff (36.1065, -87.1941).

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 999615. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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