Tuesday morning’s Putnam County, TN tornado rated EF-4

The tornado killed 18 in the county and injured nearly 90.

A man looks for items he can salvage from his store Tuesday, March 3, 2020, near Cookeville, Tenn. Tornadoes ripped across Tennessee early Tuesday, shredding more than 140 buildings and burying people in piles of rubble and wrecked basements. At least 22 people were killed. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey) (Mark Humphrey, Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

PUTNAM COUNTY, Tn. – The National Weather Service in Nashville continues to reveal details of Tuesday’s early morning tornadoes that wreaked havoc on the middle part of the Volunteer State.

The newest information released Wednesday night was that an EF-4 tornado touched down in Putnam County, killing 18 and injuring 88. Three people are still unaccounted for, according to the National Weather Service. This is the first violent tornado (EF-4 or EF-5) to hit this part of the state since 2009.

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EF-4 moved through Putnam County, TN early Tuesday morning

The path length and width of the storm will be determined, as surveying continues.

Other information was released Monday night regarding the tornado that moved through the Music City. We first told you yesterday about the multiple damage reports along the path of the storm, as surveyed by the National Weather Service in Nashville. The worst of which was an EF-3 report with maximum winds of 165 mph.

The storm traveled a distance of 53.4 miles, making it a long-track tornado. To put that in perspective, the distance between Vinton and Lynchburg is roughly 54 miles.

The tornado traveled 53.4 miles, which is roughly equivalent to the distance between Vinton and Lynchburg.

The population of Davidson, Wilson and Smith Counties in Tennessee is more than 836,000 people. That’s more than twice the population of the hypothetical path from Vinton to Lynchburg. This particular tornado killed 5 people and injured more than 150.


About the Author

Meteorologist Chris Michaels is an American Meteorological Society (AMS) Certified Broadcaster, forecasting weather conditions in southwest Virginia on WSLS 10 News from 5 a.m. to 7 a.m. weekdays on Virginia Today.

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