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EF0 tornado in Moore County, North Carolina

Tornado April 16, 2011 · Moore County, North Carolina

EF0

Rating

65.2 mi

Whole path

200 yd

Path width

Deaths

103

Injuries

$172.1M

Damage as recorded

NOAA records this tornado county by county. Its path ran through Moore County → Lee County → Chatham County → Wake County; the totals above are for the whole tornado.

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 200 yards (0.11 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

A tornado touched down in northeastern Moore County, west of Cameron near the

intersection of Red Hill Road and Gilchrist Road. The initial tornado touchdown intensity was EF0 with only minor damage reported to a few homes, consisting of mainly shingle

damage.

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 Cameron (35.3378, -79.3130).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

EF3 Cumberland County 1 dead EF3 Wayne County EF2 Bladen County 3 dead EF2 Harnett County 1 dead EF2 Person County EF2 Halifax County EF2 Wilson County EF1 Alamance County EF1 Johnston County

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 297611. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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