F3 tornado in Columbus County, North Carolina

Tornado November 16, 2006 · Columbus County, North Carolina

Rating

7.3 mi

Whole path

300 yd

Path width

Deaths

Injuries

$570K

Damage as recorded

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

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 300 yards (0.17 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What F3 means. This tornado was rated on Fujita’s original scale, used until 2007. F3 meant severe damage: whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned; the scale paired it with winds of 158–206 mph, figures later judged too high, especially toward the top of the scale, and revised downward in the Enhanced Fujita scale. Ratings then, as now, came from the damage.

What the National Weather Service wrote

Tornado touched down among manufactured homes just north of Old Lake Road and tracked across an area of more substantial homes and businesses along NC Highway 87. There were 13 homes (mobile and brick) destroyed and more than two dozen damaged. Damage was rated as F3 due to construction of structures that were damaged and destroyed - if structures were better constructed the damage may have been rated higher. The wind speed was estimated to be around 200 mph. As the tornado tracked north of NC Highway 87 toward the county line, the tree damage was rated as F1.

The wider storm

A fast moving tornadic thunderstorm moved ashore on the coast of Brunswick County. There was no damage found until the storm moved across extreme eastern Columbus County and then extreme western Pender County. The tornado produced F3 damage through Riegelwood and diminished to F1 intensity as it crossed a wooded area to the Cape Fear River and into Pender County. This was the second deadliest tornado to hit North Carolina in the last 50 years.

Began near Riegelwood (34.3400, -78.2400).

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 3485. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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