TornadoLookup

Home / North Carolina / Alamance

EF1 tornado in Alamance County, North Carolina

Tornado April 16, 2011 · Alamance County, North Carolina

EF1
Rating
10.7 mi
Whole path
66 yd
Path width
$980K
Damage as recorded

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

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 66 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

The tornado first touched down at Bethel Methodist Church Road, snapping some trees thirty feet off the ground and uprooting several other large trees. Similar but slightly heavier damage was noted on Aunt Mary`s Road including the uprooting of a four foot diameter oak tree. A roof was also blown off a two story residence. The tornado continued to move northeast along Altamahaw Union Ridge Road where a home had one wall collapse. Another home had its roof ripped off along with some minor damage to the attached garage. The roof of the home was deposited along the storm track and across the street. The home across the street lost windows and had a portion of its roof removed. Snapped and downed trees in this area covered a width of approximately 200 feet. At Hickory Nut Point on the northeast shore of Lake Burlington, the tornado damaged two homes with one losing three quarters of its roof. A truck in the driveway was also destroyed by a fallen oak tree. Multiple trees were uprooted or snapped in the area, many of which exceeded one foot in diameter. The tornado continued to move northeast, paralleling Union Ridge Road. Several residences sustained roof damage along this road with numerous trees snapped or uprooted. The tornado exited the county just east of Union Ridge Road, damaging one last residence. The roof of the home was partially removed. A nearby storage shed was also heavily damaged with a second storage shed completely destroyed. In total, 20 homes were damaged, including 6 homes that were completely destroyed.

The wider storm

A strong storm system that had a history of producing deadly tornadoes across Oklahoma and the deep south on the 14th and 15th weakened as it crossed the southern Appalachians during the early morning hours of the 16th. A squall line descended the Blue Ridge by the late morning hours, and rapidly intensified

as it moved east into the central Piedmont of North Carolina, with four long live tornadic supercells evolving from the linear convective segment. These tornadic supercells went on to produce 9 tornadoes in the Raleigh CWA, including 2 EF3s, and 4 EF2s. The tornadoes left 8 dead with approximately 275 injuries.

Began near Altamahaw (36.1733, -79.4516).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 295915. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

Tornadoes near your address

See every tornado that passed near a place you know, measured to its path.