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EF1 tornado in Hoke County, North Carolina

Tornado May 21, 2020 · Hoke County, North Carolina

EF1

Rating

0.2 mi

Path length

200 yd

Path width

$50K

Damage as recorded

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 200 yards (0.11 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

An EF-1 tornado with maximum wind speeds of 100 mph briefly touched down 5.5 miles northeast of Raeford in Hoke County, NC, on the southern edge of the Fort Bragg Military Reservation. Damage consisted of an area of snapped and uprooted pine trees about 200 yards wide at its maximum width. The overall length of the damage path was just under a quarter mile. The tree damage straddled Plank Road, with the worst of the damage just south of Plank Road. The tree debris and ground vegetation was lofted high enough to result in a well-defined tornado debris signature on national weather service doppler radar at the time the damage occurred.

The wider storm

A large upper level low over the Tennessee Valley slowly lifted northward and into the Ohio Valley. This allowed for copious amounts of moisture and rain to affect central North Carolina. This resulted in several reports of flash flooding across western portions of central North Carolina, that lingered into the the morning of May 22nd. Several storms became strong to severe during the afternoon with day time heating, producing wind damage and a brief tornado in Hoke County.

Began near Raeford Muni Arpt (35.0461, -79.1565).

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 894446. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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