NWS: 2 tornadoes touched down in Tennessee during storms

Two tornadoes touched down in Tennessee during Wednesday’s severe storms.

Officials with the National Weather Service said both twisters were classified as EF-1, meaning they reached up to 90 or 95 miles per hour.

One touched touched down in Warren County, just southeast McMinnville near Irving College. The other happened in Bedford County near Shelbyville.

The NWS said the Warren County tornado travelled for 3 miles and was 125 yards wide. It touched the ground at 4:59 p.m. about eight miles south of McMinnville before dissipating at 5:03 p.m.

Officials say the tornado was fast-moving and injured one person in the Irving College area.

The tornado heavily damaged a large barn, destroyed a mobile home and heavily damaged outbuildings, sheds, and a few other buildings. It also uprooted and snapped trees. The most concentrated damage was at the intersection of Highway 56 and Chapel Hill Drive.

The tornado that hit Bedford is called an anticyclonic tornado, which the NWS says is very rare. They account for only percent of all tornadoes. Typically, tornadoes spin clockwise; anticyclonic tornadoes spin counter-clockwise.

Survey teams confirmed the tornado Thursday afternoon after spending the day looking at damage in both counties as they were hit the hardest in the storms.

McMinnville was also hit pretty hard with at least two homes destroyed, one of which was on Beersheba Highway where residents say two tornadoes hit just before dinner time.

News 2 spoke with Pam Perry, who left her house just moments before it was destroyed.

“We left about four minutes before. They said it was coming, and we could see the tail coming over the mountain, so we headed for my mom’s. She lives right across the field,” Perry told News 2.

She said she and her family had lived in their home since 1975, but it belonged to her father before that.

“The house was around 100 years old, and we have remodeling it for 47 years,” Perry explained.

In Bedford County, Shelbyville appeared to take the brunt of the storms with at least one large barn destroyed in the high winds and images of debris scattered through some areas.

“The barn used to be, the walls on it were 13 feet high. There were decks on the front and the back,” the owner Troy Taylor told News 2.Bedford County also appeared to be hit hard with at least one barn completely destroyed in Shelbyville.

He continued, “Here’s the top of one of the decks, and there’s the top of one of the decks. Now how did the deck from the back, get over to the front?”

Trees were also downed on Charlie Russell Road as well as on Highway 231 South. A home’s roof was also reportedly damaged there.

Hail was fairly widespread and varied in size with some places being hit with ice that appeared to be larger than golf balls. Some notable areas where hail fell were Cowan, Watertown, Manchester, Lynchburg, and Cottontown.

Courtesy of WKRN News 2