EF2 Tornado — Cherokee, North Carolina

2012-03-02 · near Postell, Cherokee, North Carolina

Event narrative

An EF-2 tornado with maximum wind speeds around 120 mph produced a damage path

21.5 miles long and 400 yards wide. The tornado track extended across almost the entire county and damaged the northern part of Murphy. The storm destroyed five homes and five businesses. The number of structures affected totaled one hundred eighteen. In Murphy, a Feed Store and two rows of commercial storage units were destoyed. Also, a shopping strip with a Sherwin-Williams store suffered heavy damage.

Surprisingly there were no injuries reported despite the heavy damage and long track.

Wider weather episode

A deepening low pressure system moved northeast from the Mid Mississippi Valley through the Great Lakes initially driving a warm front northward through the Southern Appalachian region through the afternoon. The associated cold front swept across the area late Friday night. A one hundred knot upper level jet positioned over a 50 knot low level jet resulted in a strongly sheared environment. The intense shear and moderate instability produced an atmosphere conducive to long-lived, discrete, supercell thunderstorms across the region. One of these storms moved across Southwest North Carolina producing an EF-2 tornado in Murphy during the evening.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (35.0945, -84.2639)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 366756. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.