EF1 tornado in Sampson County, North Carolina

Tornado May 23, 2017 · Sampson County, North Carolina

EF1

Rating

13.7 mi

Path length

100 yd

Path width

Injury

$1.5M

Damage as recorded

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 EF1 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF1 is moderate damage: roofs badly stripped, mobile homes pushed off foundations or overturned, windows broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 86–110 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

At approximately 4:38 PM EDT, a tornado touched down just west of

highway 24 on the west side of Autryville, where it produced tree

damage as well as destroying one mobile home and taking the roof off

of another near Mills Street and East Clinton Street. The tornado

then briefly lifted before descending again near the Autryville

Volunteer Fire Department, which was severely damaged as the garage doors

blew in, and ripped a large portion of roof off. Two of their fire engines and one fire truck were covered in rubble. The tornado lifted then touched down again on the northeast side of Autryville, near Johnson Tanner Lane, where several homes were

damaged. The tornado lifted again, doing little additional damage until touching down again near McGee Church Road, where it destroyed a vacant turkey house and snapped numerous trees and power poles. It then dissipated at approximately 5:17 PM EDT. There were no fatalities and only one minor injury reported.

The wider storm

A significant impulse ejected northeast, moving atop a quasi-stationary wavy frontal zones that extended from the Deep South into the Carolinas. A surface wave and

a 40 to 50 kt low-level jet accompanied the impulse. A low-topped supercell developed

along the surface wave and produced an EF-1 tornado in Sampson County. The EF-1 tornado produced non-continuous damage along a 13 mile path from Autryville to just NE of Salemburg.

Began near Autryville (35.0000, -78.6400).

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 698052. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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