Home / North Carolina / Madison
F1 tornado in Madison County, North Carolina
Tornado May 7, 1998 · Madison County, North Carolina
NOAA recorded where this tornado touched down but not where it lifted, so it appears as a point. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.
What the National Weather Service wrote
A tornado pulled a roof partly off a house and damaged three other houses. Debris from the houses was found about a half mile away on another ridge. Numerous trees were blown down through 4:37 pm EDT.
The wider storm
Supercell thunderstorms developed in a highly sheared atmosphere in eastern Tennessee then moved east across the mountains, foothills and western piedmont of North Carolina. These long-lived, cyclic supercells produced a considerable amount of large hail and some damaging winds in the mountains. The first tornado of the day in western North Carolina occurred in Madison county. Numerous reports of hail as large as golf balls were reported from the mountains. In Madison and Yancey counties, hail covered roads. More supercell thunderstorms developed behind the previous ones and followed similar tracks. In northern Buncombe county, the town of Barnardsville had three separate severe storms cross overhead and drop hail on the ground to a depth of 3 inches. Yancey county also had 3 separate storms move across the county that accumulated hail to 6 inches in depth. The hail was still on the ground the next morning. As the supercells moved into the foothills, they began to curve a little to the right, indicative of strong mesocyclonic circulations present. One supercell produced several tornadoes from Alexander county to Davie county. Another storm produced a tornado that tracked from western Caldwell county into south-central Alexander county. A third supercell that emerged out of the mountains in McDowell county produced several tornadoes from the southern part of that county to northern Mecklenburg county. Damage was fairly significant across western North Carolina with numerous homes either damaged or destroyed. Fortunately, no one was killed. However, 2 people were injured as a result of the violent F4 tornado in eastern Caldwell county. One person received minor injuries from a lightning strike in Yancey county later in the evening.The storms continued to reform in eastern Tennessee until very late in the evening and still produced large hail as they crossed the border into the mountain counties of North Carolina, before weakening shortly after midnight..
Began near Spring Creek (35.8000, -82.8500).
Other tornadoes from the same storm system
7 more tornadoes the National Weather Service filed under this storm episode.
Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 5646432. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.
Tornadoes near your address
See every tornado that passed near a place you know, measured to its path.
We couldn’t get your location. Check that location access is allowed for this site, or type an address.