Update on Nashville Area Tornadoes of Thursday Evening

The NWS in Nashville has completed its storm damage survey after the events of late Thursday evening.

As we anticipated in an earlier blog post, 2 tornado touchdowns have been confirmed in the metro Nashville area.  We'll refer to the 1st tornado as the "Antioch Tornado" and the 2nd as the "Lebanon Tornado".



Details on the Antioch (East Nashville area) Tornado:
Radar estimates suggest that the tornado touched down at approximately 10:02 pm EST in a residential area near Percy Priest Lake (southeast of the Nashville International Airport).  Click to enlarge the estimated track map with annotations below:  

Below is a short YouTube video taken by a resident showing damage to homes near the initiation point of the Antioch tornado:




Two churches also sustained significant roof damage when the tornado initially touched down near Butler and Smith Springs Roads:

Damage at Priest Lake Presbyterian Church

The tornado continued on to the Northeast across the Priest Lake Forest community with significant damage to numerous homes:

This also corresponds to the time and place where the tornado appears to have reached maximum width and strength, with winds estimated at 120 mph in some locations (see the purple encircled region on the track map above).

The tornado continued across Percy Priest Lake and entered Wilson county before lifting near Gladieville Circle and Stewarts Ferry Pike roads.

Below is an image from the NWS Doppler Radar near Nashville, taken when the storm was entering the Percy Priest Lake area (click to enlarge):

The yellow encircled region on the image shows the tornadic circulation as indicated by the radar.  Remember, green colors show winds blowing toward the radar (which is represented by the small black dot toward the lower left corner of the image) and red colors show winds blowing away from the radar).

Details on the "Lebanon" area Tornado:
Radar estimates would suggest that the tornado touched down at approximately 10:14 pm EST, just South of Central Pike on Gladeville Road (click to enlarge my approximate map with annotations below):

Based on ground-truth damage observations, the tornado remained on the ground for approximately 8 miles.  The end point is near the intersection of I-40 and South Cumberland Street, just South of Lebanon.


Below is a YouTube video showing damage to homes near Lebanon:

Maximum sustained winds are estimated to have reached 120 mph (EF2 Strength) near the midpoint of the tornado's path.  In this same region, the maximum tornado width of 150 yards was reached.  Major damage to warehouse roofs and outer walls was observed in this area:

A high tension power line truss was bent completely in half in this region as well, between Franklin Road and Highway 840:

Below is an image from the NWS Doppler Radar near Nashville, taken when the storm was approaching I-40 just South of Lebanon (click to enlarge):

The yellow encircled region on the image shows the tornadic circulation as indicated by the radar.  Remember, green colors show winds blowing toward the radar (which is represented by the small black dot toward the lower left corner of the image) and red colors show winds blowing away from the radar).


Amazingly, there were no fatalities, and only 2 relatively minor injuries reported.  This is certainly a strong testament to the severe weather watch and warning system that was in place on Thursday evening!


All damage photographs courtesy The Tennessean.