EF1 tornado in Carteret County, North Carolina

The National Weather Service in Newport/Morehead City NC has confirmed a tornado near Straits in Carteret County, North Carolina, on September 2, 2016. The tornado briefly touched down near Harkers Island Road, just north of the Harkers Island bridge, causing significant damage to a small boat storage facility, minor siding and window damage to a mobile home, and collapsed the garage door and caused moderate roof damage to a small business. In addition, several trees had their trunks snapped or had large branches broken. The EF1 tornado had winds estimated at 95 mph, a path width of 50 yards and path length of 240 yards.

Hurricane Hermine made landfall in the Big Bend area of Florida during the early morning hours on September 2nd, and moved northeast along the Southeastern United States states on the 2nd. Hermine weakened slightly to Tropical Storm strength and crossed through Eastern North Carolina during the late evening on September 2nd, and exited off the North Carolina coast near Duck during the morning of September 3rd. The lowest pressure of 994.3 mb was measured on 03/0629 UTC at a mesonet site located at Fort Macon in Carteret county. Highest official winds were measured at the Duck tide gauge DUKN7 where sustained speeds of 71 mph with gusts to 84 mph occurred between 1447 and 1454 UTC on the 3rd. These strong winds led to sporadic power outages across eastern North Carolina. Official Storm surge flooding of 2 to 4 feet above ground level occurred along much of the coast. The highest surge of 3 to 4 feet was observed on the sound side of the Outer Banks on the morning of the 3rd as strong north winds developed on the backside of Hermine as it passed offshore. Preliminary damage from storm surge was estimated at 5.5 million dollars with the vast majority of this occurring across Outer Banks Dare County. Rain-bands associated with Hermine produced two EF1 tornadoes and one EF0 tornado that led to around 30 thousand in property damage. Bands of heavy rain associated with Hermine produced rainfall totals of 4 to 8 inches over most of the region, with the highest amounts near the coast. This heavy rain produced widespread poor drainage flooding with a few reports of flash flooding.