Unlike regions that have one peak tornado season, Tennessee is at risk of tornadoes both in the spring and fall, so the Aug. 7 tornado took forecasters by surprise.
The EF2 tornado lasted about six minutes and stretched 4 miles. It began near North Campbell Station Road in Farragut and gained momentum and hit the Lovell Crossing apartment complex. The aftermath of the tornado later forced residents to move out of their homes due to damage. Caught near the eye of the tornado, university student Logan Korn was riding his motorbike near the tornado, and had to pull over.
“I remember the wind was blowing so strong that I actually couldn't hear my motorcycle engine running anymore. It felt like being completely submerged underwater,” Korn said. “I didn’t know it was a tornado.”
The tornado was also not spotted by the National Weather Service, although a tornado watch and a thunderstorm warning were both in effect. Though people often look to the NWS for definitive information, their data is just part of a toolbox used by meteorologists, according to Kelsey Ellis, a geography professor at the University of Tennessee who specializes in hazard climatology.
“We realize that people are frustrated that there was no tornado warning,” she said. “But looking back, I think [the meteorologists] did a great job. It was a good reminder that broadcast meteorologists aren’t just presenting someone else’s forecast of even the NWS warnings, but they're also interpreting this information on their own and determining what additional risk they want to communicate to their audiences.”
Between technology and nature, Korn balanced his reliance on the phone for weather updates with the hopes of thinking he can make it across town. “All of a sudden it smashed into me,” Korn said.
“The type of storm that came through is a quasi linear convective system. But really, it's kind of like a squall line,” Ellis said. You may not see the rotation on radar, and you may not even see much more damage than the storm caused over a much larger area.”
But even with accurate forecasting, the message can get lost for residents who don’t take these precautions seriously. High winds, for example, can be as dangerous as a tornado, according to WVLT meteorologist Paige Noȅl, even though winds don’t necessarily sound threatening.
“Straight-line winds can do just as much damage as a tornado. They can both do the same amount of damage,” she said. “We try to stress that.”
East Tennesseans often believe that the mountains prevent tornadoes from forming.
“What the mountains are doing, they do break up the flow overall, but once a tornado is formed, the tornado does not care that you live on a hill or live in a valley..so it’s not affected that much by what’s on the ground,” Ellis said.
Research suggests that we will see more and more tornadoes in East Tennessee. “Right now there’s a scientific consensus that tornado frequency is shifting across the U.S. and so yes, that means here in Knoxville and across Tennessee, perhaps we can expect a greater frequency of tornadoes slowly over time,” Ellis said.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is working on a forecasting product that would map risk scenarios for the public, according to Ellis.
“One thing that NOAA has been working on is ways to show probabilistic risk. You would look at a map and see the percent area for tornadoes as the storm comes through. It would be like a radar image, except instead of looking at the storm you are looking at the risk of different hazards affecting you,” Ellis said.
As the research evolves, the hope is that eventually everyone in the path of severe weather knows it, and knows what to do.
