EF0 tornado in Cleveland County, North Carolina

Tornado April 9, 2011 · Cleveland County, North Carolina

EF0

Rating

0.5 mi

Path length

75 yd

Path width

Injuries

$50K

Damage as recorded

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 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 short tornado path began between Dick Spangler Rd and Fallston Rd north of Shelby. The tornado moved southeast for about one half mile before lifting just east of the intersection of Oakberry St and Fallston Rd. Most of the damage was limited to downed trees and minor structural damage to frame homes. The roof was

blown off a vehicle shed between Wright St and Dick Spangler Rd. Damage was more significant near the end of the path across from Oakberry St. Two mobile homes were

flipped while several other mobile homes received mainly minor damage to underskirting

and roofing. Two men and a woman residing in one of the flipped homes received mainly minor injuries.

The wider storm

Thunderstorms initiated over the mountains of North Carolina during the afternoon hours. As the afternoon progressed, several supercell thunderstorms developed which tracked southeast across the foothills and piedmont along a slow moving surface cold front. With unusually steep lapse rates over the region, several of the storms produced large hail. Fortunately the supercells were a little elevated in nature, and only one, brief, weak tornado developed. Still, hail ranging up to the size of a softballs did quite a bit of damage over the region.

Began near Beam Mill (35.3680, -81.5120).

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 299112. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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