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F1 tornado in Iredell County, North Carolina

Tornado May 7, 1998 · Iredell County, North Carolina

F1
Rating
8.0 mi
Whole path
1,320 yd
Path width
$525K
Damage as recorded

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

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 1,320 yards (0.75 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What F1 means. This tornado was rated on Fujita’s original scale, used until 2007. F1 meant moderate damage: roofs badly stripped, mobile homes pushed off foundations or overturned, windows broken; the scale paired it with winds of 73–112 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

A fairly wide, but weak tornado crossed the border from Alexander county and travelled east to NC Highway 115. Trees, poultry houses, and various other structures sustained damage.

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 Love Valley (35.9200, -80.9800).

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 5646442. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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