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EF1 tornado in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina

Tornado May 9, 2008 · Mecklenburg County, North Carolina

EF1
Rating
18.2 mi
Whole path
75 yd
Path width
$7.0M
Damage as recorded

NOAA records this tornado county by county. Its path ran through Gaston County → Mecklenburg County; the totals above are for the whole tornado.

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 75 yards (0.04 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF1 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF1 is moderate damage: roofs badly stripped, mobile homes pushed off foundations or overturned, windows broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 86–110 mph. The rating comes from a survey of the worst damage after the storm, not from a wind measurement, so it says as much about what the tornado hit as about how strong it was.

What the National Weather Service wrote

A tornado began on the south side of Gastonia in Gaston County. It produced damage to several structures in extreme eastern Gaston County before moving into Mecklenburg County, where the track become more intermittent. The public reporting several large trees blown down in the area around Woodlyn Dr in Northwest Charlotte. The path ended in the Beatties Ford Rd area north of Charlotte, where an outbuilding was lifted and blown 20 to 30 feet and 2 large dumpsters were overturned.

The wider storm

A mini-supercell thunderstorms produced a tornado with a nearly 20 mile path through the Gastonia and Charlotte metro areas during the early morning hours of May 9th.

Began near Paw Creek (35.2780, -81.0133).

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 102666. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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