EF2 tornado in Cabarrus County, North Carolina

Tornado March 3, 2012 · Cabarrus County, North Carolina

EF2

Rating

2.9 mi

Whole path

100 yd

Path width

Injuries

$3.0M

Damage as recorded

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

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 100 yards (0.06 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF2 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF2 is considerable damage: roofs torn off well-built houses, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, consistent with estimated gusts of 111–135 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

This tornado moved into Cabarrus County from Mecklenburg County, south of Harrisburg and west of the Robinson Church Rd and Peach Orchard Rd intersection. The tornado affected several residential areas, damaging around 30 homes and destroying two homes which slid off their foundations. The tornado crossed Robinson Church Rd and Peach Orchard Rd, lifting just short of Hickory Ridge Rd.

The wider storm

Two supercell thunderstorms entered the North Carolina mountains during the evening hours. One of the storms produced a strong tornado in the town of Murphy in Cherokee County. The supercell remained surprisingly strong as it crossed the southern mountains, producing large hail and eventually another weak tornado in Jackson County. Later at night, storms organized into a broken line across Upstate South Carolina. The northern part of the line crossed the southern North Carolina piedmont where it produced a strong, brief tornado on the northeast side of Charlotte. The storm did not exhibit supercell characteristics, and the tornado spun up quite quickly as the line intersected a low level boundary.

Began near Harrisburg (35.2640, -80.6590).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

EF0 Jackson County EF0 Swain County

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 371938. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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