Wind disturbances influence forest landscape patterns and can alter structure and function in forested systems across vast areas annually. In this study, we examined high-resolution aerial imagery of two southeastern tornado tracks. We used supervised classification of the aerial imagery to map damage severity and topographic overlays to test how elevation, side of the tornado track, and aspect influence tornado damage severity. We also related the total biomass of trees felled to the total carbon transferred from living to decomposing pools to calculate a ‘carbon footprint’ for each tornado track. Tornado damage severity was greater in lower elevations. On the right side, damage severity was higher for windward aspects. The tornado tracks had estimated carbon footprints of 0.19 and 0.0095 Tg. The results of this work increase the meteorological understanding of tornado behavior as well as its impact on ecological processes.