EF2 Tornado — Cheatham, Tennessee

2021-12-11 · near Bell Town, Cheatham, Tennessee

Event narrative

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.

Wider weather episode

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.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (36.1107, -87.1726)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 999618. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.