EF0 tornado in Wilkes County, North Carolina

Tornado August 17, 2021 · Wilkes County, North Carolina

EF0

Rating

0.7 mi

Path length

50 yd

Path width

$15K

Damage as recorded

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 50 yards (0.03 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF0 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF0 is light damage: shingles and siding peeled, gutters torn, branches broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 65–85 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

A EF-0 tornado, captured on video and with peak winds estimated to be 80 MPH, briefly touched down near Mahaffey Road in far southeast Wlikes County. This tornado damaged siding and took off a few shingles to one home, then uprooted a few small trees before lifting less than a mile northwest of its touchdown.

The wider storm

Remnants of Tropical Storm Fred moved north from the Gulf Coast states into the Central Appalachians. Strong low level shear and abundant tropical moisture sparked low topped, rotating thunderstorms which helped spawn two brief EF-0 tornados in Wilkes County. Non-rotating damaging thunderstorm winds also occurred in portions of northwest North Carolina during the afternoon of the 17th and again during the late evening of the 17th into the early morning hours of the 18th. These multiple rounds of thunderstorms

led to at least 9,000 residents losing power in northwest North Carolina. In addition, a south to southeast flow of high tropical moisture allowed for several inches of rain to fall over portions of our area, with the highest amounts in the NC mountains.

Began near Osbornville (36.0669, -80.8831).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

1 more tornado the National Weather Service filed under this storm episode.

EF0 Wilkes County

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 980800. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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