EF0 tornado in Sampson County, North Carolina

Tornado November 15, 2008 · Sampson County, North Carolina

EF0

Rating

4.3 mi

Path length

50 yd

Path width

$25K

Damage as recorded

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 50 yards (0.03 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF0 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF0 is light damage: shingles and siding peeled, gutters torn, branches broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 65–85 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

Numerous trees uprooted and snapped along the path of the storm. The most significant damage was concentrated at a home along Maxwell Road where trees were snapped in half and a carport was blown down and twisted into trees.

The wider storm

Two mini-supercells tracked northeast along a warm front during the early morning hours of the 15th. The two supercells spawned several tornadoes in Samspon, Johnston, and Wilson counties, two of which resulted in two fatalities.

Began near Clement (35.0863, -78.6197).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

4 more tornadoes the National Weather Service filed under this storm episode.

EF3 Wilson County 1 dead EF2 Johnston County 1 dead EF1 Johnston County EF0 Johnston County

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 134980. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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