Yesterday began as a typical fall day in middle Tennessee, partly cloudy, which later turned into overcast and intermittent showers. A little before noon, one of our MAG members to our west sent out a message indicating that a strong thunderstorm front had passed through his area and we should see it in less than an hour. The National Weather Service then issued its first tornado watch for the day. Then a tornado warning came and went. The storm to our west dissipated as it ascended the Cumberland Plateau, so all it brought was some light rain. Temperatures were in the upper 60's, typical for this time of year on a rainy day.
Received our second tornado warning a little after 5 pm, and it was to expire at 5:45, yet in the message itself, it advised a storm front would pass the area at 5:55. I checked the current radar, and as a licensed commercial pilot, I have a fair amount of experience interpreting radar images. There was nothing too intense, and all the storm activity was to our south. A little after 6 pm, we started eating dinner. Out of curiosity I checked the current radar image again with my Ipad. Holy crap, the storm had diverted directly to the north, and it had sharply intensified. We were literally in the middle of dinner. I told my spouse to immediately change from her sandals to real shoes. I gathered up my get home bag, a dog leash and raincoat. Off we went to the basement.
Once safely sheltered in the basement, I turned on my dual band portable radio, and a weather net was already in progress. We heard a report to our south that there was heavy rain and high winds. Our electric power then went out, which is unusual since we're maybe a mile from the regional substation. Shortly thereafter the storm reached our homestead. We could hear the intense winds and rain, and we sheltered further under a stout stand for our hot water tank. My wife, our dog, and I huddled there as the storm passed on northwards. The intense part lasted maybe 30 seconds, and it was quite loud.
We stayed in the basement another 10 minutes or so, listening to updates on the weather net. I finally peeked out to see what was going on. It was almost dark, so my initial impression was things weren't too bad. But I did notice the roof of our chickens' laying boxes was in a fence. Then I noticed trees down throughout our backyard and around the chicken pen. The electric fence charger had been ripped from its tree, and trees crushed the fence and our recently planted fruit trees. Another tree just missed one of our solar arrays, but it crunched one of our raised beds.
Most of the damage was done in the rear of our property. Much of the roof of one of our barns had blown off, and a large tree had crashed on it in another location, so that building was toast. Our shooting range has 5-6 trees laying perpendicular to the shooting lane. We had a nice grove of mature pine trees that were 70-80'+ and they're all gone.
However, thank the good Lord, we're all fine, and our livestock too. The chickens are a little confused, but they're using the downed trees as a gymnasium. Our home is fine too, no damage at all. We lost commercial grid power, but due to our DC solar system, we had lights and communications. The NWS classified the storm as an EF-1 tornado. Our insurance adjuster also thought it was a tornado. So we successfully survived our first and hopefully last tornado. The width of twister was 200-300 feet, and it covered only a mile or so, crossing a couple of roads in the area. Here's a drone video of some of the destruction, though it doesn't cover my immediate AO:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=su6RAM50o-w From a prepping standpoint, I think we did everything correctly. The NWS issued the final tornado warning while we were already in our basement, but we were weather aware, as I was watching the storm development. I've found that the NWS does not issue warnings in a timely manner. I should note that it is highly unusual for the fronts to travel south to north in our area, most systems travel west to east here. We had solid comms, so we were good there. We had dressed appropriately and we had a positive mindset. Post-storm, we had lights, comms, and heat. Firemen went door to door to check on folks, I think they were surprised when our solar powered motion flood light activated. Power came back early this morning, and the roads are open again. Fortunately, the storm was somewhat localized.
Now comes the hard work, cleaning up the mess. Some of our local MAG was here today, and there are work parties scheduled for tomorrow and Saturday. It's been an interesting experience.
