EF1 tornado in Johnston County, North Carolina

Tornado May 5, 2009 · Johnston County, North Carolina

EF1

Rating

7.2 mi

Whole path

30 yd

Path width

$200K

Damage as recorded

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

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 30 yards (0.02 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

An EF-1 tornado touched down initially just to the west of NC Highway 96 in a wooded area. The tornado cross NC Highway 96 and produced significant damage to several homes along and east of NC Highway 96. The homes sustained exterior and roof damage with uprooted or snapped tree damage consistent with EF-1 damage.

The tornado proceed to cross NC Highway 39. Several homes between Antioch Church Road and NC Highway 42 sustained damaged. The tornado continued to track east-northeast, causing roof shingle damage to the Antioch Fire Station and a nearby home. A mobile home near the fire department also sustained shingle and siding damage. The tornado then continued to track northeast across Barnes Lake Road and NC Highway 222, where it caused significant tree damage and some minor roof or shingle damage to surrounding homes or mobile homes. The tornado then

exited the county, crossing over into southwest Nash County.

The wider storm

Two tornadic supercells developed along a stalled warm front that extended across souther piedmont and coastal plain of North Carolina.

The cells produced 4 tornadoes in Johnston, Nash and Wilson counties.

Began near Emit (35.6745, -78.2769).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

EF2 Wilson County EF0 Johnston County

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 159761. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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