EF1 tornado in Carteret County, North Carolina

A tornado touched down near Otway and North River. The damage path started in Otway near Highway 70 and consisted of a few uprooted or snapped trees along with minor shingle damage to nearby houses. The path continued northwest with a few more snapped trees along Firetower Road before the track went over a largely unpopulated or inaccessible area. More damage was again found along the same track as it crossed Merrimon Road where two separate locations had a concentration of snapped and uprooted trees, mainly of the softwood variety. At the entrance to Open Grounds Farms, more than 30 trees were snapped or uprooted in a convergent pattern. Minor shingle damage also occurred to the owners house. Maximum wind speeds were estimated here to be between 95 and 105 mph due to the amount of trees snapped along with the damage to the well built home. The path length was likely sporadic but confirmation will not be possible given the location over an inaccessible area. Note that although close to the tornado that traveled from Davis to Open Grounds Farm, this tornado was a separate tornado confirmed by looking back at the radar achieves and comparing this to plotted damage found on the storm survey. The time was based on radar data.

Hurricane Florence was a long-lived Cape Verde hurricane and the wettest tropical cyclone on record in the Carolinas. The sixth named storm, third hurricane, and the first major hurricane of the 2018 Atlantic hurricane season, Florence originated from a strong tropical wave that emerged off the west coast of Africa on August 30, 2018. Florence became a tropical depression near Cape Verde on August 31 and progressed west-northwest, becoming a Tropical Storm on September 1. Florence strengthened rapidly on September 4'5, becoming a Category 4 storm on the Saffir-Simpson wind scale with maximum sustained winds of 130 mph. Florence weakened to a tropical storm by September 7, but the system regained hurricane strength on September 9 and major hurricane status with winds of 140 mph on September 10. However, increasing wind shear caused the storm's winds to gradually weaken over the next few days. However, the storm's wind field continued to grow. By the evening of September 13, Florence had been downgraded to a Category 1 hurricane. Hurricane Florence made landfall near Wrightsville Beach early on Saturday September 15, and weakened further as it slowly moved inland.

Florence produced extensive wind damage along the North Carolina coast from Cape Lookout, across Carteret, Onslow, Pender and New Hanover counties. Thousands of downed trees caused widespread power outages to nearly all of eastern North Carolina. The historic legacy of Hurricane Florence will be record breaking storm surge of 9 to 13 feet and widespread devastating rainfall of 20 to 30 inches, locally up to 36 inches, which produced catastrophic and life-threatening flooding. The hardest hit areas included New Bern, Newport, Belhaven, Oriental, North Topsail Beach and Jacksonville, along with Downeast Carteret County, or basically south of a line from Kinston to Cedar Island. A storm total rainfall of 34.00 inches was reported in Swansboro, while the NWS office in Newport recorded 25.20 inches. Wind gusts of 106 mph were reported at Cape Lookout with 105 mph at Fort Macon.